AOL UK is coughing up more than £100,000 in compensation after a bungled network upgrade left around 20,000 punters without broadband. The ISP said it would give £5 credit to those hit by the glitch as "a goodwill gesture". The £5 credit will appear on accounts when the next bill is due, AOL UK said in an email.

Last week, AOL UK sent a pop-up to around 50,000 punters telling them about the ISP's ongoing network upgrade. Of those, half were downed when they clicked on the pop-up and followed instructions to upgrade their connection.

As a result, punters lost their connection. When they tried to call tech support many experienced long wait times as AOL's helpdesk was flooded with calls.

The £5 compensation is due to cover the cost of calls after the ISP began charging for tech support in August.

A spokesman for AOL UK told us: "We will be issuing a credit of £5 to all those who had to call us as a result of this pop-up cuting their connection this week to ensure their customer service call costs are covered. We deeply regret the incident occurred." ®

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