From Pipex to Zen, IDNet or Fast?

After many years of (until recently) fairly faultless service, I figured its finally time to jump-ship before tiscali-antics get too out of hand. supririsingly it took only 1 phonecall (at 5:50pm no less) and a few minutes to get it all sorted, and 2 days later, I have my MAC Code vial email (probly in the post too lol).

So question is. who to change to...

Since Ive been paying around £30-£35 a month for the last few years for a 2mbit fixed service, Im not too worried about the prices of the Zen / IDNet top products (Zen 8000 Pro and IDnet's "Home Supermax").

my main questions are, what are they like compared to each other?

Both Zen's 8000Pro and IDNet's Home Supermax are the same price, however supermax does give an aditional 10gig download limit (however its limits are aparently split 30gb/30gb peak/offpeak whereas Zen's do not appear to be.)

Main concern is that after browsing through the forums for both IDNet and Zen, there seems to be many people willing to shout their praises, but also more than a few (more noticeble on IDNet section of the board) that seem to be rather unhappy with things.

For Fast.co.uk I know very little about them, however they seem to be getting a lot of good comments so far (but then, so did Enta when they first started out). worth a dabble with them, or best avoid until they have proven themselves a little more?

So anyone able to help me out on this one? Just a few clear opinions from you users would help, as even tho both are only 1month contract, id prefer to get the right move first time

Many thanks.

Scott.

Edited by DeviIman (Thu 12-Mar-09 00:00:03)

I spent a while with Fast.co.uk. I found their speeds to be somewhat erratic amongst all the claims that they could be sorted. Not altogether a cheapie so I did expect a bit more.
They would be quite safe in other aspects of the service. Good luck.

Edited by sloopjohnB (Thu 12-Mar-09 09:11:35)

I've been with IDNet for a couple of years. I've suffered very few problems, all minor and nearly all within the last couple of months - I believe due to major upgrades. If I was faced with the choice now I'd unhesitatingly go with them again, simply because my guess (and it would be only a guess) is that neither Zen nor Fast would be likely to prove better in the long run but could conceivably prove to be worse.

My 2p worth, albeit somewhat clumsily put!

If you want what seems to be another top echelon choice I would suggest
a look at AAISP, very switched on outfit, they offer a few extra tweaks
to their service as well.

Well I was with Zen for a long time and just recently migrated for purely financial reasons, if you see them being praised then that is because they are good, I had no problems with them whatsoever and would go back in an instant if I could. You are right in the fact that the allowance is at any time of day and upload doesn't count towards that, I did make a brief foray to another isp when I was with them and it was bad however this time seems to be ok so far but if things go pear shaped I would go back to Zen

In reply to a post by DeviIman:

After many years of (until recently) fairly faultless service, I figured its finally time to jump-ship before tiscali-antics get too out of hand. supririsingly it took only 1 phonecall (at 5:50pm no less) and a few minutes to get it all sorted, and 2 days later, I have my MAC Code vial email (probly in the post too lol).

So question is. who to change to...

Since Ive been paying around £30-£35 a month for the last few years for a 2mbit fixed service, Im not too worried about the prices of the Zen / IDNet top products (Zen 8000 Pro and IDnet's "Home Supermax").

my main questions are, what are they like compared to each other?

Both Zen's 8000Pro and IDNet's Home Supermax are the same price, however supermax does give an aditional 10gig download limit (however its limits are aparently split 30gb/30gb peak/offpeak whereas Zen's do not appear to be.)

Main concern is that after browsing through the forums for both IDNet and Zen, there seems to be many people willing to shout their praises, but also more than a few (more noticeble on IDNet section of the board) that seem to be rather unhappy with things.

For Fast.co.uk I know very little about them, however they seem to be getting a lot of good comments so far (but then, so did Enta when they first started out). worth a dabble with them, or best avoid until they have proven themselves a little more?

So anyone able to help me out on this one? Just a few clear opinions from you users would help, as even tho both are only 1month contract, id prefer to get the right move first time

Many thanks.

Scott.

I used to be with Zen, I found them a decent ISP, but when I started to have a big drop in speed from what I was used to, the help I received from Zen wasn't what I was expecting. All the help I got from Zen was "your speeds are within the thresholds that BT set".

In the end I decided to move to Fast.co.uk, admittedly I still had the drop in speeds but Fast were right on the case and I was gob smacked with the level of customer service from Fast. They told me to do some speed test over a 3 day period and log the results down in a text doc and after 3 days I had to email the results to Fast.

They replied back and said the results were not good enough and they then told me they would take the matter up with BT, shortly after Fast contacted me again saying that they were in the process of arranging a visit from a BT engineer, and they wanted to know the best day/time for the visit.

The engineer came and checked the wiring and done some tests, everything was OK he said, Fast contacted me the day after and asked what the engineer had said, Fast told me to do some more speedtests and log the results again, but the speed problem was still there. I notified Fast of this and they then arranged for another engineer visit, he done the same tests but he went on to say that he was going to do something/adjust something at the exchange. The result is I now never see speeds drop to what the did.

So has you can see Fast.co.uk done a HELL of a lot more than what Zen were prepared to do.

Anytime I email Fast I get a reply back within 20 minutes, sometime even 10 minutes, I can remember emailing them at 11:45pm and expecting them to read my email the following morning, I was extremely surprised to receive an email back from them 10 minutes later.

Personally I find Zen less value for money than Fast, looking on Zen's website I see that their "Zen 8000 Pro" package, which has a 50GB download limit is £34.25 with the vat.

I am on Fast's 110GB (448kbps upload speed package) and I pay £45.99, so for an extra £11 a month I get more than double the download limit with Fast. It is worth pointing out that Fast don't mention the 110GB package with the 448kbps upload speed on their website, they do mention the 110GB with the 832kbps upload speed but that is a bit more expensive. I only found out about the 110GB 448kbps upload speed package when I telephoned them to ask if they done any other packages between the 45GB and the 110GB.

Also the fastest speedtest I got with Zen was 6400 kbps, with Fast I regularly get the high 7000 kbps and even 7100 kbps which is extremely good on a 8128 connection/sync rate which equates to a BRAS/IP profile limit of 7150 kbps, 7150 been the fastest I could possible get.

I don't think you need worry about "best avoid until they have proven themselves a little more" as they have been in the business since 1999. Also if you do have problems with Fast, they will basically bend over backwards to sort it out for you. I have never dealt with a place that would go to the lengths they did to sort problems out.

If you do have speed issues they will get you to do quite a few speedtests so that they then have something they can show BT when they raise the fault with them.

Has I mentioned above, Zen were not prepared to do this for me, but Fast did. On the whole the speeds I get with Fast are superb and are the fastest I have had with any ISP I have been with even on Friday nights, which with other ISP's (especially AOL) used to be VERY SLOW at this time.

Also, if you do join Fast and then find them not for you, you are not tied to a 12, 18 month contract, with Fast it is only a 3 month contract.

I would advise anyone against signing up for a 12, 18 month contract with a new ISP, it is just too long if you find they are rubbish. There are plenty of 1 or 3 month contract ISP's around now and IMO these are the best ones to try as it is no great length of time if you find you don't like them.

IDNet is brill and only a 1 month contract

Cheers all.. Only thing I dont like so much about Fast is the pretty small "peak" download allowance. I can often find myself watching stuff on Iplayer or such during the "peak" hours and both Fast and IDNet seem to split their allowances between peak / offpeak times which can be a pain..

I dont mind scheduling downloads to occur during the offpeak period, but with the increasing ammount of VoD and game patches etc.. sometimes you dont want to have to wait until offpeak to watch / download something.

This is one of the main factors why Im leaning towards Zen, they make no diferentiation between peak and offpeak, its simply a monthly limit. while IDNet's total download allowance is slightly larger, having it split 30/30 could still be a pain in those less-frequent situations where your activites are quite bandwidth heavy during peaktime, but not much in the evening.

Granted, if Fast did a package like 10-15g peak and 40-50gig offpeak, I would be there like a shot. Its not that a download a massive ammount tbh, its just that I dont like the idea of "oh i cant do <insert badwidth consumpion device> until offpeak.


*Edit*

Hmm, After just looking over fast's website again, it appears I may have been incorrect regarding a peak / offpeak split of download allocation. Can anyone (perhaps Fatboy) confirm whether the download allowance is "anytime" or if its split peak / offpeak?

Edited by DeviIman (Sat 14-Mar-09 03:23:58)

Post deleted by Fatboy71

Edited by Fatboy71 (Sat 14-Mar-09 07:51:20)

In reply to a post by DeviIman:

Cheers all.. Only thing I dont like so much about Fast is the pretty small "peak" download allowance. I can often find myself watching stuff on Iplayer or such during the "peak" hours and both Fast and IDNet seem to split their allowances between peak / offpeak times which can be a pain..

I dont mind scheduling downloads to occur during the offpeak period, but with the increasing ammount of VoD and game patches etc.. sometimes you dont want to have to wait until offpeak to watch / download something.

This is one of the main factors why Im leaning towards Zen, they make no diferentiation between peak and offpeak, its simply a monthly limit. while IDNet's total download allowance is slightly larger, having it split 30/30 could still be a pain in those less-frequent situations where your activites are quite bandwidth heavy during peaktime, but not much in the evening.

Granted, if Fast did a package like 10-15g peak and 40-50gig offpeak, I would be there like a shot. Its not that a download a massive ammount tbh, its just that I dont like the idea of "oh i cant do <insert badwidth consumpion device> until offpeak.


*Edit*

Hmm, After just looking over fast's website again, it appears I may have been incorrect regarding a peak / offpeak split of download allocation. Can anyone (perhaps Fatboy) confirm whether the download allowance is "anytime" or if its split peak / offpeak?

I can confirm that Fast do not have peak or off peak download hours.

Basically the download allowance you have is yours to use at whatever time of day you wish.