The biggest difference you'll find is that when you phone support you'll probably be having a conversation with someone who knows more about networks and routing than you do. Doing first line support.

I figure the only way this is economic is because they have a technical customer base who phone support maybe twice a decade.

Years back I had a conversation with someone who had done a couple of ISP mergers, and his opinion was that techie-focused ISPs look fantastic on paper because their support costs are really low. Then someone buys them, tries to expand their userbase to "regular" people, and their support costs fall in line with the rest of the industry (eg Demon -> Thus -> Vodafone).

So far, A&A have avoided that fate.