Stephanie, about NTL and BT being different companies, I might be able to shed some light on something based on what happened to me in a hotel in Aberdeen when I tried to connect to the internet and spent two days pulling my hair out, plus the front desks clerk's plus the maintenance guy's.
I had a phone in the room. It dialled out. I could connect to AOL, but was immediately chucked off without so much as a melodic "goodbye". End result reasoned that when I signed up from home, it automatically programmed my AOL account to work from our BT line. This hotel did not have a BT account. So when I tried to dial in to AOL using a BT number, it spit it back at me. I had to phone AOL and have them physically change my account preferences to allow me to use any phone system in the UK (I could not do this through preferences). I then had to find the right phone number within the AOL location list that corresponded to the correct phone system the hotel was using. If you find yourself travelling and are using AOL to connect, you should be aware of what I went through. It isn't a problem with the hotel system, and it is something that is remedied by calling AOL. Knowing that would have saved me from having to change hotel rooms...twice!
(Okay, don't think it was me insisting this. The front desk clerks were not listening to what I thought the problem was. I kept saying I did not think it was the phone.)
Moral of the story: Be aware of which phone company you are using when dialling AOL. Otherwise, they're all pretty much the same, and yes, freephone is free. You'll pay for time on AOL but not for the call. They also have a system of you paying for the call but not for the time. and if you want to pay more per month, your time on AOL is not charged...oh, it all gets so complicated!
