Zzoomm have problems

By all accounts a main fibre have broken and have cause slow-downs, it is not just affecting zzoomm, but my download speed at the moment is less than 2Mb/s, uploads are a little more. If i use the VPN, i get around 150 down, which is strange.
See, i should have stayed on FTTC
Only joking, it is also affecting other networks as a friend of mine is on a different network and having the same problem, hopefully they can sort it out quickly.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

my download speed at the moment is less than 2Mb/s, uploads are a little more. If i use the VPN, i get around 150 down, which is strange.

That is strange.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

my download speed at the moment is less than 2Mb/s, uploads are a little more. If i use the VPN, i get around 150 down, which is strange.

That is strange.

I thought that, this problem is not just affecting Zzoomm, someone I know on Gigaclear is having the same problem. I know these things happen, but what is a little annoying is they don't seem to know when it will be fixed, also I was told Fibre is more reliable.

Fibre is more reliable for the "last mile". But there are a number of other devices/cables involved in the rest of the connection from that piece of fibre to the Internet. It sounds in this case like maybe a peer is having a problem and that is causing congestion on other links - possible that your VPN has a different route through the network to some of the other traffic and therefore you are seeing variable speeds depending on which route a particular endpoint is serviced by.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

By all accounts a main fibre have broken and have cause slow-downs, it is not just affecting zzoomm, but my download speed at the moment is less than 2Mb/s, uploads are a little more. If i use the VPN, i get around 150 down, which is strange.

Then clearly there is nothing wrong with the fibre itself, nor with the backhaul from your FTTP node to the provider's main Internet gateway.

There is some issue with Internet routing to some sites, but not others.

You can inspect the traffic using Wireshark and you may be able to see some difference between VPN'd and non-VPN'd (e.g. maybe one is using IPv4 and the other IPv6; that would suggest maybe a problem with their CGNAT box. You could temporarily turn off IPv6 to see if that makes a difference. I don't know whether Zzoomm do IPv6 at all though)

Otherwise the problem is likely with their peering or transit connections to the wider Internet. Debugging that stuff is hard. You'll need to provide Zzoomm with exact details of which sites you are testing against, and ideally traceroutes to each of those sites, to see what's going on.

But this is where you find out the downsides of going with a cheap network operator, who know about digging holes in the ground, but who don't have much experience running an Internet network.

It's also worth tracking what public IP address you have been assigned. Go to a site like ip4.me and make a note of it, then try disconnecting and reconnecting to the ONT. See if your IP address changes, and if your service improves. Keep a log of IP addresses and service quality. You may find some IP blocks are "good" and some are "bad". This is because the smaller ISPs are having to buy random chunks of address space from other providers, and some blocks may not be routed fully (e.g. are not registered in routing databases or not permitted by BGP filters). Sometimes they geolocate to the wrong country and you may find that some services like the BBC are not accessible at all.

My hunch is that fibre local loops will not be as reliable as it is forecast to be.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If i use the VPN, i get around 150 down, which is strange.

That proves its not the fibre to the ISP but a problem from the ISP to their partner networks. By using the VPN you are forcing the routing elsewhere, which by chance, is going over a non-congested route to the VPN provider. Easily could have happened on FTTC, or ADSL or even dial up. (except with dial up you could have lots of ISPs and switch between).

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

My hunch is that fibre local loops will not be as reliable as it is forecast to be.

https://www.theregister.com/2015/05/20/verizon_fibre...

Reliability – DSL users suffering rain-driven outages will raise a hollow laugh to hear that Sampath claimed fibre is 70 to 90 per cent more reliable than copper. This results in 60 per cent fewer costly truck rolls on the fibre network, and savings of 40 to 60 per cent on maintenance.

Forecasts will probably be based on the data from Verizon and then other parts of the world that've deployed FTTP.

1/3rd to 1/10th the faults of copper seems reasonable.

Below is what they say on their site.
We have been advised that one of our major trunk network suppliers has suffered a major fibre break, affecting Zzoomm and other companies. This will mean that our alternative diverse circuits may become congested leading to slower than normal internet access for customers in Hereford. Our supplier’s engineers are continuing to repair the damage, but unfortunately at this stage, we do not know when the link will be restored.



It seems ok now, so either it is fixed, or it is not busy enough to congest the network.

Things go wrong, I am surprised that more don't go wrong and if it is fixed then they have done a good job fixing it so quickly.

Looks like a pretty old link you are relying on there.

I reckon fibre reliability will be hit by the poor installation often very shallow buried and unprotected and the fact that one tree rub or spade hit or other PIA operator treading on or rope burning a single circuit affects many punters. Whereas a single copper disconnection affects a single punter and alerts the telco.

If a telco gets their act together they can detect and prevent copper insulation faults. It's more difficult to predict and prevent fibre or copper breaks.

I spent over 35 years hearing about increased reliability and reduced 'truck rolls' and very seldom did it come to pass.

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

Looks like a pretty old link you are relying on there.

I reckon fibre reliability will be hit by the poor installation often very shallow buried and unprotected and the fact that one tree rub or spade hit or other PIA operator treading on or rope burning a single circuit affects many punters. Whereas a single copper disconnection affects a single punter and alerts the telco.

If a telco gets their act together they can detect and prevent copper insulation faults. It's more difficult to predict and prevent fibre or copper breaks.

I spent over 35 years hearing about increased reliability and reduced 'truck rolls' and very seldom did it come to pass.

The installation issues might well be a problem in the future, especially if they've done shallow burial in soft surfaces.

Openreach themselves say up to 5 times more reliable, this using PON, so I'm not sure what I can add beyond that across 35 years BT/Openreach haven't carried out large scale fibre to the premises builds before so the past can't be used as a guide to the future.

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/ultrafast-...

In reply to a post by XGS_Is_On:

The installation issues might well be a problem in the future, especially if they've done shallow burial in soft surfaces.

Openreach themselves say up to 5 times more reliable, this using PON, so I'm not sure what I can add beyond that across 35 years BT/Openreach haven't carried out large scale fibre to the premises builds before so the past can't be used as a guide to the future.

https://www.openreach.com/fibre-broadband/ultrafast-...

If it is five time more reliable, then it should be super reliable, I only had that one major problem for the nine years I was on FTTC and after a couple of months on fibre, had a problem. ummm.

Anyway, it was not fixed yesterday, as it went slow again last night, but according to their status page it is fixed now, lets hope it will stay fixed for a bit. They did also put "We will be upgrading the firmware in our streetside cabinets. This will unfortunately mean a single short service interruption of 5 minutes between 03:00 and 04:00. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause." I don't remember FTTC ever having a firmware update. They may have, but I don't remember it.
I know it is early in the morning, but with more and more devices relaying being online, it is not good. Makes me sometimes wonder if I did make the right choice and should have stayed with FTTC, and this time I am not joking.

If it is five time more reliable, then it should be super reliable, I only had that one major problem for the nine years

Five times more reliable across the network not on an individual link. Yours may have only had 1 problem in 9 years but other lines might have had permanent or regular problems. They are working across the whole network and your line may be considered a "good" line but there are lots of bad lines out there.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

If it is five time more reliable, then it should be super reliable, I only had that one major problem for the nine years I was on FTTC and after a couple of months on fibre, had a problem. ummm.

As you note with your earlier explanation regarding the problem you had with your current FTTP, "it is not just affecting zzoomm". It could equally well have affected ADSL/VDSL services from other providers ummm.

I always think on most things in life the best predictor of the future is the past.

Where I do agree Openreach will see reduced fault volumes is the reduced customer wiring as most copper insulation faults were within the customer premises.

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

I always think on most things in life the best predictor of the future is the past.

From https://www.unissu.com/proptech-resources/Never-Figh...:

In 1929, Lieutenant Colonel J. L. Schley, of the Corps of Engineers wrote in The Military Engineer: “there is a tendency in many armies to spend the peace time studying how to fight the last war”

This quote, often since repeated gives voice to the common error of preparing for old challenges rather than the new. It’s easy to do. We are a pattern recognising species after all. People instinctively react to what’s around them by relating it to something they already understand. They know what already happened and look to see those previous patterns played out again.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Five times more reliable across the network not on an individual link. Yours may have only had 1 problem in 9 years but other lines might have had permanent or regular problems. They are working across the whole network and your line may be considered a "good" line but there are lots of bad lines out there.

I am shocked that FTTC worked at all on my lines, since in the days of ADSL I was told by a Openreach bloke that my cables needed replacing, but they never were.

i had slow-downs on FTTC, certainly towards the end of my contract for some reason, but only the one major problem.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

As you note with your earlier explanation regarding the problem you had with your current FTTP, "it is not just affecting zzoomm". It could equally well have affected ADSL/VDSL services from other providers ummm.

True, Some people on zzoomm's faceache page were saying speeds were dropping below 1Mb/s, I don't think I got that as I could still stream, but it did buffer a couple of times.

Anyway, it all seem to be up and running again now, we will see tonight.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I don't remember FTTC ever having a firmware update. They may have, but I don't remember it.
I know it is early in the morning, but with more and more devices relaying being online, it is not good. Makes me sometimes wonder if I did make the right choice and should have stayed with FTTC, and this time I am not joking.

Maybe they do but don't tell people, Your provider is being truthful about planned outages which is not a bad thing. My router often has a firmware upgrade and reboot around 2am without any warning.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I know it is early in the morning, but with more and more devices relaying being online, it is not good. Makes me sometimes wonder if I did make the right choice and should have stayed with FTTC, and this time I am not joking.

I really hope you keep the forum abreast of each and every one of your thoughts on this matter from day to day and hour to hour.

In reply to a post by binary:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I know it is early in the morning, but with more and more devices relaying being online, it is not good. Makes me sometimes wonder if I did make the right choice and should have stayed with FTTC, and this time I am not joking.

I really hope you keep the forum abreast of each and every one of your thoughts on this matter from day to day and hour to hour.

It's all a bit "The [not very] Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ "

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

[Maybe they do but don't tell people, Your provider is being truthful about planned outages which is not a bad thing. My router often has a firmware upgrade and reboot around 2am without any warning.
[/quote]

you could be right, but yes you are right about routers, but if i can I stop them updating until I want them to. My TP-link will tell me there is an update. I don't what Zzoomm's own router will do, not that it is really their own router. It is a Icotera, goodness knows why they those them.

Anyway, got a email from them.

Dear Customer,
As you may be aware, for two evenings earlier this week (Tuesday 29th and Wednesday 30th August) there has been disruption to your internet service on the Zzoomm Network in Hereford. You may have experienced poor download speeds, websites taking longer to load, and streaming services buffering. I’m reaching out to apologise for the inconvenience this has caused, to provide a transparent explanation, and to inform you what we’re doing going forward to prevent future issues.
At around 16:00 on Tuesday 29th August, we received alarms from our network monitoring due to an outage on one of our backhaul links into Hereford (also referred to as major trunk links). We have 2 backhaul links into Hereford (for resilience) and these links connect our Hereford network to the rest of the internet. Since the backhaul links are redundant, an outage on a single backhaul link shouldn’t cause any disruption to service. However, there is a reduction in backhaul capacity (the amount of traffic that can be sent/received) whilst only a single link is in operation.
This reduction in capacity caused the network to congest at peak times (18:00 – 23:30) on both evenings, and as a result of this congestion, internet services will have been disrupted and download speeds reduced significantly. On Wednesday 30th August there was a game update (Call of Duty) and a preload of a new game (Starfield) which saw an exceptional 25% traffic increase for all internet providers,. This unfortunately compounded the congestion issues in Hereford.
The cause of the outage on the backhaul link was a fibre break on a third-party network. This was a major break – it took multiple engineers and civil engineering works to identify and then repair the damage. We got confirmation that the fibre was repaired at 03:30 on Thursday 31st August, and after thorough testing, we brought the backhaul link back into service – restoring resilience and capacity into Hereford.
It’s my role at Zzoomm to ensure our network provides a quality (and speedy) service at all times - on this occasion the network regretfully didn’t perform. However, it is also my role to ensure we continuously improve and prevent repeat issues. So, here is what we’re doing:
We are upgrading the backhaul links into Hereford (increasing the capacity by 10x) to ensure we can provide a congestion free service at all times (even when one link fails). These upgrades have been planned for some time and we expect them to be delivered within the next couple of months.
We’ll be reviewing the outage with our third-party supplier – focusing on the time taken to recover services to identify improvements.
We’re developing an improved mechanism to provide more frequent email updates throughout an outage/service disruption, so that we can keep you informed and up to date.
As a gesture of goodwill, we’ll be applying a £10 credit to your account. This will appear on your next invoice dated after Friday 8th September 2023.

They don't have to give us all a tenner, but good on them for doing so.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

They don't have to give us all a tenner, but good on them for doing so.

They have been transparent about what caused the problem, they are also improving their backhaul links and everyone affected gets £10. Well done Zzoomm.

Edited by PCJM40 (Fri 01-Sep-23 22:19:01)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

They don't have to give us all a tenner, but good on them for doing so.

They have been transparent about what caused the problem, they are also improving their backhaul links and everyone affected gets £10. Well done Zzoomm.

I agree and at least they know what caused the problem, which is more than Openreach did when my broadband would not sync unless I used an old Huawei modem.

We will see.

I agree and at least they know what caused the problem, which is more than Openreach did when my broadband would not sync unless I used an old Huawei modem

Your comparing a network outage with a 3rd party compatibility issue!
How far will zzooom or any other network operators go to resolve 3rd party problems?

Edited by witchunt (Sat 02-Sep-23 09:15:10)

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I agree and at least they know what caused the problem, which is more than Openreach did when my broadband would not sync unless I used an old Huawei modem.

I agree with witchunt that an issue where your own router is not syncing is different than an issues within a providers backhaul although the Openreach engineers should really have a standard router in their van they can pull out to temporary put on the circuit to prove the problem. I wouldn't say their super-duper test equipment conclusively proves that as they always get better speed readings on it than you can with your router.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

How far will zzooom or any other network operators go to resolve 3rd party problems?

I would guess given they are using an ONT and the demarcation point is Ethernet, much less likely to occur... as it was when OR provided modems, the "wires only" probably caused more engineering pain than it solved politically.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

Your comparing a network outage with a 3rd party compatibility issue!
How far will zzooom or any other network operators go to resolve 3rd party problems?

The original modem that Openreach supplied failed to sync, the only thing that would was a Huawei I borrowed from my next door neighbour as at that time they were using an All-in-one thing from BT. I was using a ECi modem and it was Openreach network that went down as I lost broadband, picked up the phone as I had a normal phone connected and no dial tone and when they got it sorted, nothing would sync apart from the Huawei I borrowed from my next door neighbour. Plusnet sent me their Hub 1 and that did not work either, so I ordered a second hand Huawei router from ebay. Plusnet then sent me a Zyxel router, that worked for a couple of weeks and then failed. Evcen Ipenreach did not have a clue what was happening as their own equipment would not sync in the home and they had problems at the cabinet. So their advice was to keep the Huawei in line. I did, but and connected it to the Wan on the Zyxel.
I still don;lt know when the fault was sorted, all I remember is that a year or so later I thought I would try the zyxel without the modem and it worked. and so did the hub one. the only thing that did not work was my original ECI modem.

Strange fault, but never got anything for it apart from the Zyxel and then that went belly up a few months ago which is why I got bought the TP-link I now use on Zzoomm. I really need to dump these old things, I will keep the Huawei, just in case I do go back to FTTC.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

Plusnet sent me their Hub 1 and that did not work either

Openreach should have hung around and resolved the issue, highly likely the Openreach engineer didn't have a clue how to fix it so closed the fault call as 3rd party issue. This is really poor from Openreach.

They could have simply referred back as a network fault, raise an incident and have someone look at the DSLAM cabinet. That's just bread and butter stuff. It was likely a card fault or a firmware update required. As the end user accepted the resolution it went nowhere.

In reply to a post by witchunt:

As the end user accepted the resolution it went nowhere.

I'm in the South East, and have Virginmedia cable 1 gig (no Openreach full fibre options here, or any alt provider). I have not noticed any impact to services. At my client they have 500Mbps BT. We have been downloading 7.5TB of data (the client has got me on the side, migrating their cloud drive to a different provider - I say yes to this sort of thing if they do it directly as a 'contractor' with me, easy cash). Not noticed any notable impact on the downloading between Microsoft and Google drives. After a failed longish relationship I now find myself with someone fairly new, who has Sky - they claim they pay for 150Mbps, but I get 800+ (so suspect they are really paying for 900). We have done general streaming (4K Netflix) & Sky Glass downloads (several GB) without any notable impact.

I have no idea specifically where the wider issue is impacting - so it could be totally irrelevant. Else, perhaps "Zzoomm" lack a degrees of redundancy.

I haven't posted in here for a while, but zyborg47, you've always helped me out (over a long time) + in my mind, you share a lot of valuable info. I'm surprised to hear you of all people, given your background, had a mystery issue and didn't get to the bottom of it. It just goes to show, at times, Openreach is a mystery to us all! I've had quite a few instances over the years where my lines been a nightmare and despite non-stop visits by Openreach and agreement (with them noting 300+ drops on their tablet on one visit in a day), the root cause didn't get resolved. These long running problems all either fixed themselves or I changed technology (e.g. from ADSL2+ to VDSL) OR I relocated.

I feel there is less of reoccurrence of these sorts of issues nowadays, although I only have my own experience.

Anyways, in your shoes, raise complaint and ask for compensation. Irrespective of root cause, getting free stuff feels nice.

+ I'm enjoying reading your recent posts, has been a while since I spent an hour on here. I noted the tone of some people here was on a downward spiral when I last spent time here. Not that it personally offends me, or that I care, rather - when faced with bs, I spark up a wildfire back. I haven't done that on my tech related forums over the year's, so just stepped backward. Lets see if anything triggers me.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 03-Sep-23 01:01:37)

In reply to a post by PCJM40:

Openreach should have hung around and resolved the issue, highly likely the Openreach engineer didn't have a clue how to fix it so closed the fault call as 3rd party issue. This is really poor from Openreach.

i had three of them come over the week or so as far as i remember, I remember the last one being a woman, and she said they have checked the cabinet and had the same problem there where my line was. Which means it was a problem at the cabinet and not at the house. Even their own equipment would not sync, which I thought was strange.

Anyway, it makes no difference now, I am not connected to it any more and at some point they did sort it out as the Zyxel worked again when I decided to give it a go. But it all started with the phone line going dead.

it was at the end of 2017, I found this in a email they sent me.


I've discussed this with our products team. As it looks like there may be a compatibility issue between the Hub One and the cabinet you're connected to, we're sending you a different type of fibre router. It'll be a ZyXEL.

so a while back, strangely it happened not long after I recontracted if I remember correctly

@ ukhardy07, cheers for that.
I don;t have a problem now, I changed to Zzoomm a couple of months ago, I must admit it did take some thinking about as I was fine with FTTC, but Zzoomm offered me 500Mb/s for £24, which was better than what Plusnet was offering me for FTTC and FTTP.
I had a few reasons for not wanting to change, the main one was the hassle in having FTTP installed, to be honest they were pretty good, even if she did struggle to drill a hole in the wall But everyone has problems with that. I did notice this morning when I went out that one of the screws holding the splice box on the wall is coming out of the wall, Anyway, the slow-down I had for a couple of days was a network problem, and it has been sorted and hopefully will not happen again, but technology at the end of the day, things do go wrong. I must be getting milder in my old age

As for Virgin, not available here and even if they were, i don't think I would have gone to them. I would have stayed where i was or or find another provider that offers FTTC for a good price.

But it is doen, I am now on superfast FTTP, even if I don't really need it. i pay for 500Mb/s, but get a bit over.



The few people I know personally that are using Zzoomm seems to get a bit over what they are paying for, I don;t how it works, I presume the speed is controlled via the ONT.

anyway, thanks for the kind words.
Hope you are well

Vectoring brought with it quite a few compatibility issues with 3rd party hardware

I swapped to FTTP with ZZOOMM a few weeks ago from the my old Sky broadband after they started to install the cables this summer in my area (Bewdley, Worcestershire).

After a few weeks of problems (the main fibre cable in the street seemed to be damaged) I'm now on > 500Mb from my old 40Mb.

It was all good until today and I have no internet connection. Rang ZZOOMM and they state there has been a national incident that is being resolved. Anyone else having issues?

This issue was resolved the following day.

However I now have no internet connection again starting on 5th October and still nothing today.
Twice in a matter of weeks. When its working its great but reliability is such a key issue and I'm losing confidence.

In reply to a post by AxiD68:

I now have no internet connection again starting on 5th October and still nothing today.

Is the issue isolated to you, your local community or widespread?

In reply to a post by FibreBubble:

My hunch is that fibre local loops will not be as reliable as it is forecast to be.

But on the flip side, as any break will impact many customers at the same time, its going to get fixed faster without the customer needing to push for a resolution.

Unless its a single PON break and you are the only customer, which is possibly the problem from the latest poster.

So going forward once the network is busy, they're not going to sit and twiddle their thumbs on a problem as its impacting too many customers.

Edited by alexatkin (Fri 06-Oct-23 23:47:29)

In reply to a post by alexatkin:

But on the flip side, as any break will impact many customers at the same time, its going to get fixed faster without the customer needing to push for a resolution.

Unless its a single PON break and you are the only customer, which is possibly the problem from the latest poster.

So going forward once the network is busy, they're not going to sit and twiddle their thumbs on a problem as its impacting too many customers.

The last couple of times they have had problems, it has affected other providers as well.
Seems ok at the moment and have been now for a few days, let's hope it stays like it.

i had a letter yesterday saying they have increased the amount for recommending them to other people. Gone from £50 to £75, for the new customer the one that recommended them.
I am still not ready to do that, need to have a couple of months with no problems at least.