Zen Recommendations

Having a host of problems with current ISP and it's time to move, did have Newnet in the past and it was very good, have started to hear some negatives now hence considering Zen.

Any opinions at all, I had thought they were the market leader and second to none but some of the comments I'm seeing have me wondering.

We are not connected to a super BE exchange so they would not be an option.

Forums generally contain a large proportion of problem posts - it's their nature. It's not as though this is a busy place these days, though.

I've been with Zen for eight years at three private addresses and with two businesses, and they've never put a foot wrong for me.

Paul

Zen's service for me has been nothing short of impeccable - when there is a problem (and that's rare....), it's sorted efficiently and quickly. Basically it does what it says on the tin and that's why I'd always recommend them.

To those that criticise Zen due to cost - well, you get what you pay for.

I have been with Zen since March 2007 and have had hardly any downtime. I can not speak about there customer service as I have never had to phone them. I can fully recommend Zen.

I've used Zen for around 6 years for several customer sites. As other replies here have said, things rarely go wrong and when they do it's a phone call (a normal geographic number, not a 0871 etc) and very little hold time to speak to technical support. The people in tech support are based in the UK and are engineers with good understanding of the services Zen sells. Issues are quickly resolved and they will come up with 'creative' solutions when required.

Yes, Zen costs a bit more - but as with everything in life you very much get what you pay for.

Highly recommended.

Colin

Sorry, didn't spot this when I posted this

Thanks for the replies, cost is not really a big problem, I don't mind paying for reliability, currently have newnet at one property but I don't use it much at all and it's far from exchange, that said when did use it they were very good.

Main place I have orange set up for free, well think it costs £5 in line with my mobile phone, which needs to be orange as no other signal, however it has became very unreliable and speeds have been the worst ever, seen ping times of over 1000ms the other night.

I am very close to the exchange and have a cabinet outside the door, assume it's phone related.

Have also read about some FTTC trial, will that be unlikely in rural exchanges or is it not exchange specific.

How do you stand with a home/office package and business, I do have a business and do do some work at home, can I pick and choose either or?

Hi Ironnapper,

In regards to the home/business package, you can pick whichever package is suitable for your needs, we don't require business users to only use the business packages or vice versa. You'll also notice that some of the products are the same but with slightly different prices between the home and business pages (Zen Lite/Active/Pro), these are the same products and are just shown including or excluding VAT on the website depending on which page you view, in case you hadn't noticed that.

In regards to the FTTC, you can do a check on your phone line here which will show if this is enabled in your area, or if it's not enabled whether it is scheduled in for the future.
http://www.zen.co.uk/home-office/broadband/fibre-bro...

HTH

Darren

Still the best, I think.

A truly terrific ISP, had one problem and it was sorted in under two hours,

Thanks for that Darren, looks like one line estimates 8mb but not activated for 20mb or fibre.

The other gives Estimated Maximum Download Speed*: 1.5Mbps

Line enabled for "up to 20 Mbps": Yes

Again no fibre.

I guess with the above, it makes no difference that line is enabled for 20mb as it would never reach anywhere near that would it.

I'm not finding any info to say whether the 8mb line is scheduled or not for the future.

Edit, found this : http://www.zen.co.uk/business/broadband/fibre-broadb...

Doesnt appear to be many given the size of the country, I'm up in Scotland too, think I seen one down Lothian way

Closer inspection of the pricing, I see one is just without the VAT, are the terms are speeds likely to be the same, ie is one more congested than the other, any traffic shaping etc.

I'm not 100% sure of what we are using per month, I assume 10gb might be ample, if we took that package but breached the limit how does it work, with Newnet we just had to pay for what was used above allowance and could buy blocks of Gb's, with Zen would we just be asked to move up to the next package?

Thanks

Edited by deleted (Fri 17-Dec-10 15:20:24)

In terms of max download speed there's not likely to be any difference between the different grades of package. (The Office and Office Max packages have a slightly higher minimum speed guaranteed by BT Wholesale, but in practise it is very unlikely that your line would ever perform anywhere near as low as the minimum speed guarantee)

We don't employ any traffic shaping ourselves, so you should get the maximum speed your line is capable of, no matter which package you choose.

If you find that the package you bought doesn't have a high enough usage allowance for your needs you can either buy extra allowance (at £1.50 per Gb incl VAT), or you can upgrade your package. Both of these things can be done online via the customer portal.

Hope that helps!

Hi Ironnapper

No problem. James has already covered most of your queries, however in regards to the up to 20Mb services and the expected speeds I've included the comments below.

The 'enabled for 20Mb' basically means that the exchange has been 21CN enabled, which can run both ADSL1 and ADSL2+ (up to 20Mb). However you're right if the estimated download speed is 1.5Mb then it's unlikely you'll see much benefit on the ADSL2+ profile, as it's usually around 4Mb+ when you start to see an improved speed on ADSL2+.

If the second line has been scheduled for 21CN then it would show on the number checker on the website, so if there's no information on there it's likely BT don't have a date scheduled for this yet.

HTH

Darren

No live chat available today.

Unfortunately you are correct and there is no Live Chat today. Usually, as a company, we are closed on Bank Holidays. However, due to the Christmas period falling over a weekend this year we opted to operate today & tomorrow so that we were not closed 4 days in a row. We are working with reduced operating hours though - 9am to 5pm.

As with weekends, we are only offering phone and email support today & tomorrow due to the lower staffing levels than we would have on a 'standard' weekday.

Long time since I've posted on here.

First Zen. I've been with Zen since our exchange was BB enabled May 2003. In that time I've had 1 day without BB and one week when it was slow.

The very few times I've had to contact Zen the service has been of the top order.

I can't see of anyway that I'd want to leave Zen.

BTW nice to see Gorstar is still about

Thanks for the feedback, mind is made up to transfer to Zen.

However what would be the best way to go about the following :

Property 1 - Current - Orange - Intentions to move to Zen

Property 2 - Current - Newnet - Intentions to move property 1 Orange service here.