Time to move on?

Wow - been a looong time. Registered here back in 2001 (life before kids...)

Been with Zen for longer than I care to remember but now tired of the poor speeds in the evenings.

Having sung the praises of Zen for many years, I didn't think for a second that the problems I have been having could be down to my ISP - particularly as the downloads speeds have been so erratic and disparate from one day to the next.

I thought the issue must have been my router however, after buying a new one (Nighthawk R8000) I am gutted to note that little has improved and after skim reading many of the threads on here am even more disappointed to read that Zen appear to be struggling in the performance department.

Is it time to move on...? Or am I over-reacting?


D

p.s. paying for Fiber UL2 - used to be rock solid 70mbps down 20mbs up (200 yards from exchange) now struggling to get 15 down in evenings, up not an issue.

If you haven't already spoken to our support team please can you PM me your details. I'm sure we'll be able to get things sorted for you ASAP.

I see your location is London, based on my posting on other ISP forums, it seems the only major one with issues in London is Virginmedia and Sky has some localised issues on evenings (not huge complaints but I have seen a few) in North and West London mainly.

I think give Zen chance to sort things out, but if you are paying high, do consider an alternative. I cannot personally say I have reviewed a genuine congestion case for a BT customer in London for a very long time now (I post on BT forums also). Given the volume of people here and heavy business reliance, it makes sense to keep the network running smoothly.

I moved 3 addresses in London with them and had consistent speeds at all 3 addresses.

If you do make a change, ensure you check out Quidco and Topcashback, but check if you can apply other offers whilst taking cashback.

Here are a few of my old speedtests (all done over WiFi on a macbook and BT HomeHub 6):




Out of interest can you run a speedtest on your Zen connection whilst affected and post the results here?

On a positive note, I seem to recall Zen have resolved most congestion issues once raised.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Wed 24-Jan-18 00:03:35)

Location might be London - but which route is your traffic taking?

I have ADSL2+ customers in London who's data is all routed via MANCHESTER for some unknown reason...

That doesn't sound right - and something I'd like to look into.

Could you PM me affected usernames or IP addresses please?

Thanks,

Jon

done

Thanks. As per my PM, I can see that this has not been reverted to the London path following maintenance. I've raised it to NOC who should correct this soon, as well as checking any others that may have been overlooked.

Thanks,

Jon

Since the changes;

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.16299.192]
(c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>tracert aaisp.net

Tracing route to aaisp.net [81.187.30.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 13 ms 13 ms 15 ms vt1.cor2.lond2.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.72.24]
3 80 ms 14 ms 13 ms ae-7.cor2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.12]
4 14 ms 39 ms 14 ms ae-9.agg2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.16]
5 18 ms 13 ms 13 ms 51-148-73-55.dsl.zen.co.uk [51.148.73.55]
6 13 ms 16 ms 13 ms 195.66.237.47
7 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms a.needless.tch.aa.net.uk [90.155.53.11]
8 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms a.homeless.tch.aa.net.uk [217.169.11.93]
9 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms limitless.aa.net.uk [81.187.30.81]

Trace complete.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>tracert zen.co.uk

Tracing route to zen.co.uk [34.248.255.53]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 59 ms 13 ms 13 ms vt1.cor2.lond2.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.72.24]
3 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms ae-7.cor2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.12]
4 14 ms 14 ms 21 ms ae-9.agg2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.16]
5 13 ms 13 ms 21 ms 51-148-73-55.dsl.zen.co.uk [51.148.73.55]
6 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms amazon-gw-a.lonap.net [5.57.80.8]
7 26 ms 29 ms 34 ms 54.239.101.150
8 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms 54.239.101.159
9 * * * Request timed out.
10 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms 54.239.44.138
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 52 ms 26 ms 41 ms 52.93.6.146
13 25 ms 24 ms 24 ms 52.93.7.19
14 32 ms 57 ms 53 ms 52.93.7.28
15 25 ms 25 ms 25 ms 52.93.101.49
16 27 ms 44 ms 45 ms 52.93.101.48
17 27 ms 24 ms 25 ms 52.93.7.77
18 * * * Request timed out.
19 * * * Request timed out.
20 * * * Request timed out.
21 * * * Request timed out.
22 * * * Request timed out.
23 * * * Request timed out.
24 * * * Request timed out.
25 * * * Request timed out.
26 * * * Request timed out.
27 * * * Request timed out.
28 * * * Request timed out.
29 * * * Request timed out.
30 * * * Request timed out.

Trace complete.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

Since these 'changes' my live share price feed has twice dropped out reporting a connection problem, and whilst email from other mail hosts has been rock steady
my Zen email has also repeatedly asked for confirmation of my account password following a problem communicating with Zen.

Godfrey.

Edited by 3MbBik (Thu 25-Jan-18 12:15:44)

Mmmm... Here is mine.

traceroute to zen.co.uk (34.248.228.223), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 10.0.11.1 (10.0.11.1) 0.737 ms 0.283 ms 0.235 ms
2 vt1.cor2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk (51.148.72.22) 10.901 ms 70.076 ms 10.739 ms
3 * * *
4 51-148-73-55.dsl.zen.co.uk (51.148.73.55) 14.185 ms 11.722 ms 14.657 ms
5 amazon-gw-a.lonap.net (5.57.80.8) 11.037 ms 10.860 ms 10.690 ms
6 54.239.101.10 (54.239.101.10) 33.514 ms
54.239.101.90 (54.239.101.90) 23.428 ms
54.239.101.70 (54.239.101.70) 26.037 ms
7 54.239.101.101 (54.239.101.101) 22.835 ms
54.239.101.123 (54.239.101.123) 23.449 ms
54.239.101.163 (54.239.101.163) 23.111 ms
8 * * *
9 54.239.41.214 (54.239.41.214) 20.627 ms
54.239.44.39 (54.239.44.39) 23.927 ms 22.780 ms
10 * * *
11 52.93.6.168 (52.93.6.168) 61.059 ms
52.93.6.154 (52.93.6.154) 25.265 ms
52.93.6.148 (52.93.6.148) 23.964 ms
12 52.93.7.21 (52.93.7.21) 23.133 ms
52.93.36.35 (52.93.36.35) 21.019 ms
52.93.7.35 (52.93.7.35) 22.307 ms
13 52.93.7.0 (52.93.7.0) 42.333 ms
52.93.7.22 (52.93.7.22) 36.802 ms
52.93.36.38 (52.93.36.38) 42.812 ms
14 52.93.101.47 (52.93.101.47) 22.799 ms
52.93.101.123 (52.93.101.123) 21.624 ms
52.93.101.103 (52.93.101.103) 19.607 ms
15 52.93.101.42 (52.93.101.42) 25.522 ms
52.93.101.78 (52.93.101.78) 25.044 ms
52.93.101.40 (52.93.101.40) 24.722 ms
16 52.93.7.103 (52.93.7.103) 21.955 ms
52.93.7.109 (52.93.7.109) 22.179 ms
52.93.7.99 (52.93.7.99) 23.986 ms
17 178.236.0.125 (178.236.0.125) 23.027 ms * *
18 * * *
19 * * *
20 * * *
21 * * *
22 * * *
23 * * *
24 * * *
25 * * *
26 * * *
27 * * *
28 * * *
29 * * *
30 * * *
31 * * *
32 * * *
33 * * *
34 * * *
35 * * *
36 * * *
37 * * *
38 * * *
39 * * *
40 * * *
41 * * *
42 *^C


and AAISP

traceroute to aaisp.net (81.187.30.81), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
1 10.0.11.1 (10.0.11.1) 0.752 ms 0.256 ms 0.238 ms
2 vt1.cor2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk (51.148.72.22) 10.909 ms 10.619 ms 10.748 ms
3 * * *
4 51-148-73-55.dsl.zen.co.uk (51.148.73.55) 12.745 ms 13.509 ms 10.795 ms
5 195.66.237.47 (195.66.237.47) 10.952 ms 11.082 ms 10.651 ms
6 a.needless.tch.aa.net.uk (90.155.53.11) 11.809 ms 10.825 ms 10.984 ms
7 a.homeless.tch.aa.net.uk (217.169.11.93) 12.252 ms 12.700 ms 12.154 ms
8 aaisp.net (81.187.30.81) 12.166 ms 12.495 ms 12.427 ms

Thanks for replies all - sorry for the delayed response - I recall its poor forum etiquette to come on moaning and then not respond again.

Had a response from Zen (as expected - always had exceptional customer service from my perspective) although not totally convinced with the answer.

Am checking the line for faults (with BT) will see what that shows.

Will run some stats and post when I get 5.

Thanks
D.

Looks like I have a fault on the line (sorry for my cynicism Zen folks) - BT confirmed possible fault. Engineer call out arranged. Hopefully will get sorted soon.

Thanks Ajays for the swift response.

D.

In reply to a post by jongreen84:

That doesn't sound right - and something I'd like to look into.

Could you PM me affected usernames or IP addresses please?

Thanks,

Jon

Mine for several months is now routed to london, used to be Manchester,i live in the north-west no one wanted to correct this for me

Hi,

The availability of transit and peering, and also connections to BT Wholesale in London is much better than Manchester, so although we have a presence in Manchester, it makes sense to terminate customers in London where we can. This also means that it makes little sense to route a subscriber connection in London to our Manchester PoP, when the vast majority of IP traffic is likely to be going out via London anyway.

I hope this helps,

Jon

Are you now terminating any users at your Manchester PoP or is everybody now being routed via London?

We still have customer sessions terminating in Manchester, but as we migrate users across to our new network, this number will decrease. We will continue to have transit and peering in our Manchester PoP, and this will be used when it is the best path.

Cheers,

Jon

In reply to a post by jongreen84:

We still have customer sessions terminating in Manchester, but as we migrate users across to our new network, this number will decrease. We will continue to have transit and peering in our Manchester PoP, and this will be used when it is the best path.

Cheers,

Jon

IMO manchester was the better path, certainly the shortest path with a lower latency

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/15175102826...

All sorted.

Thanks again.

(Amazing service from BT BTW - only reported it online last night, fixed today)

Your single thread speed is pretty poor. It's probably worth getting Zen to check that out.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

IMO manchester was the better path, certainly the shortest path with a lower latency


+1
I think it should be a choice for us gamers that are on FTTC/FTTH connections

In reply to a post by jongreen84:

That doesn't sound right - and something I'd like to look into.

Could you PM me affected usernames or IP addresses please?

Thanks,

Jon

@jongreen84 - This cct reverted back to London for about a day a couple of weeks ago - it's now back to Manchester again... I'll get someone to email TS direct if you don't pick this up.