I suspect that being BT's cheap option - they don't get the resources/investment after being brought into BT Consumer division and likely not allowed to out compete - they did various changes to reduce costs around then.

The 3.9% is one of the reasons why I am switching - just because it made me look and see what options are available and FTTP available and isn't hugely more than I am paying (and about same as when I first got ADSL 20 years ago) combined with a reoccurring issue with phone line thought time to change. The only issue with plusnet support was time it took to answer the phone around Christmas last year, but much better later on - now if BT had fixed the line properly

I have, in the past, been a perfectly satisfied Zen customer, and have always recommended them to people in much the same way as one says "buy a Dell" when people ask what computer they should buy.

But our current experience of trying to get an FTTP line installed is absolutely dreadful. Rather than being the intermediary who protects you from Openreach's inherent delinquency and incompetence, they have become an amplifier for this delinquency and incompetence, doubling (or is it squaring?) the difficulty of getting anything done.

Openreach appointments come and go with no attendance, emails to Zen's provisioning team go unanswered, phone-calls are not returned, etc.

When you do speak to the staff, they're unfailingly polite, helpful and apologetic, but they are apparently overwhelmed.

I sorely regret our placing this order with them, and if the latest install date (given to me informally, the promised confirmation has failed to arrive) is another failure, then I shall cancel the order and prise our money back out of them.

All of the commenters here who currently have lines running nicely, be careful with them!
You do not want to be in the position of needing to ask for support....

Zen could be better at answering emails to their support team - I tried contacting them by live chat last Saturday, but there were no agents available, so I sent them a message instead. As I had not received a reply by Wednesday, and was still unable to contact them by live chat, I phoned them instead. Despite a warning that there could be an extended wait time due to technical issues that some of their staff were having, I got through very quickly. I only wanted to request a static IPv6 address, and it turned out that there is a dedicated team dealing with that who can only be emailed - they did respond to my email to them the next day though. I have no idea what happened to my original message though.

I have had no issues with network congestion, and Zen do not traffic shape. My connection has been 100% reliable in the 14 months that I have been with them.

In reply to a post by tboorman:

Zen could be better at answering emails to their support team

It's hard to do worse. They don't appear to answer ANY emails any more.

I used to always contact Zen via email and responses were usually prompt, often within a few hours or the same day.

I've sent Zen 7-8 emails over the last few months on behalf of customers and not a single email has had a response.
Not even an automatic reply warning that emails aren't being read, which is just poor.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

I've sent Zen 7-8 emails over the last few months on behalf of customers and not a single email has had a response.
Not even an automatic reply warning that emails aren't being read, which is just poor.

I agree that is totally unacceptable. They should not offer email as a way of contacting them, if they cannot be bothered to reply. It would be far better to give customers a way of logging tickets through their portal.

Hi, could you PM me with some details of the emails you've sent? I'd have expected you to get at least an automated response to confirm we've got your email.

In reply to a post by ajays:

Hi, could you PM me with some details of the emails you've sent? I'd have expected you to get at least an automated response to confirm we've got your email.

Which raises the interesting question as to which is worse. No acknowledgement at all, or confirmation of receipt and no reply?

I dont remember having issues with email support (but dont have to contact them very much at all).
I just contacted them as I had a question, I got an Auto response right away and a reply with in an hour!

In reply to a post by zelly:

Sorry for the double post but I'm putting this here as well as Which ISP in case some people only visit the Zen forum


People have been saying in recent months that Zen's technical support, sale team and performance have been going downhill, with lack of staff and network congestion

And there's also some kind of issue with the Fritzbox they insist you use, which blocks some types of ping

So could people say here, whether Zen is still worth changing ISP to from EE, or whether it's better to look somewhere else like Plusnet, John Lewis or BT? (or maybe even KCOM?)

If I change from EE to Zen, am I definitely going to see a big improvement in reliability, download speed and ping times, as well as much better support?

And is Zen any good for gaming ping times to US servers? Or does the Fritzbox make gaming a bad experience, like random disconnects from game servers because their pings to you have been blocked?


Does Zen traffic manage or traffic shape anything? Including to game servers?


Is there an ISP that's good for gaming that offers a monthly contract?

Their service has been ropey for me lately. I'm on cable to box then wire to the house and I used to get a solid 27-30 D/L and a good 10 U/L.
That's been dropping to the mid to lower 20's for d/l and about 7 for u/l and it's causing issues when there's two people using the net watching Youtube for example and streaming internet radio AAC 44.1KHz 320 Kb/s to my hifi...

Tonight the speeds are varying between 7Mbps - 18Mbps down and 7 up. Buffering like crazy.
Their speedtest result also shows something called Bufferbloat F for download but I've no idea what this means.

Virgin just stuck fibre down my street and that's offering 500 MBps and to me it looks like too big a speed upgrade to ignore.

Been with Zen over 2 years and their tech support is frankly awful, several staff were beyond aversive to calling out openreach to deal with a line fault, telling me that the handback threshold for my line was the minimum expected (its not, its where you can cancel the line) and therefore there was no fault and they wouldn't raise it with Openreach. Several others were insistent that Openreach were liable to charge £150 and were equally poorly informed in regards to the terminology.
Seriously considering hopping ship elsewhere to see if anyone can gee up Openreach to get access to a joint post with water ingress (in a neighbour's garden and they are being belligerent about access, demanding payment and more, which means my line slows down everytime it rains....
Fritzbox I have no issues with, its just the Tech Support that's frankly awful, my tech phobic wife has better knowledge tbh....