Doubling of usage allowances

Very good news indeed.

Thanks to all at Zen.

http://www.zen.co.uk/latest-news.aspx?page=11367

Great news! My line is just about to be upgraded to WBC (tomorrow) and I'd wondered about shopping around to save a few quid on rental - I'm on the 50GB tariff, but only use around 20GB a month.

The 10GB Zen tariff was little use - but now it's doubled, it's just about perfect. Looks like I can look forward to 20GB and 17Mb/s D/L, all while saving a tenner a month. How good is that?

Yes - very very good news
Now if only BT would put our cabinet back on the Fibre upgrade list

Really excellent news - I have been getting right to the end of our usage the last few months, and was wondering what would happen over the Easter holidays with the kids at home.

great news, thanks Zen

This is Great News as I have been close and even gone over my usage once recently, cheers Zen.

Wow this could not have come at a better time. I was sooo close to moving ISP until just read this tonight.
I'm currently on 46gb of a 50gb monthly quota so the rest of march will have to be low usage or most likely i'll pay an extra £10 for 10gb as lots of things I want to stream this week.

But yes 100gb is a nice increase and will allow me ample bandwidth.

So looks like Zen will be my ISP for the 5th year.

I looked at my broadband allowance a short while ago at around 12.15am, and it had changed for the new month, but not to the new allowance - mine is showing 0GB used, 10GB remaining.
Hopefully it'll change to the new allowance soon.

Mines now showing 100gb allowance on zen active

Thanks Zen now I won;t have to keep holding off downloading demo's/updates to the next month after using iplayer and 4oD so much

Yes - this morning, mine has doubled, but hadn't at around 1.30am. Must have been a case of it all updating.
Nice!

Cheers happy days

I It does take a few hours for the caps to reset at the beginning of each month.

Mine had actually changed by 00.15 but still had the usual 10GB allowance - by this morning though, it had updated to 20!
Brilliant

Now doubly happy with Zen.

What am I missing - blooming BT never doubled my allowance - it's still only unlimited

We don't have to put up with lengthy contracts, traffic shaping and outsourced support.

In reply to a post by Zadeks:

We don't have to put up with lengthy contracts, traffic shaping and outsourced support.

Yep, we get through to a completely unscripted person everytime.

In reply to a post by techguy:

In reply to a post by Zadeks:

We don't have to put up with lengthy contracts, traffic shaping and outsourced support.

Yep, we get through to a completely unscripted person everytime.

Zen can't be that good seeing as you're worried by having to have a long term contract with them. I have never been traffic shaped nor have I ever got through to a scripted person - never had to phone support you see.

This is super news, now if they could only make their more reasonably priced products 10mbps upload too then it'd be competitive in terms of capacity.

They don't need to force long contracts on consumers to make them stay. They even offer monthly contracts with ADSL products. Where is BT's confidence?

I have never been traffic shaped


So how do you work this out?! Surely your not the only user on BT Infinity that can avoid traffic shaping.... or maybe you have a little secret to share

Gosh I learn somthing every day. I'm disappointed to learn that I am being traffic shaped. Any chance you could tell me what I might get with Zen as they are not doing traffic shaping.

My current stats can be seen in the linked image

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kOkT-zeJ4HE/T3twT...

Yup every days a school day!

BT Infinity state on their website they impose traffic shaping on P2P traffic during peak hours

I get it now - I see why I'm not traffic shaped - I don't use P2P !!! Thanks for the enlightement.;

just out of interest it would be good to see your speed test results at 9pm on a week day evening, just to see how it compares with the speed test done in you previous post at around 11.30am

I couldn't manage 9:00pm as I only just read the post. Why are you doing this to me - you are forcing me to use up more of my unlimited allowance

Will these do you - even faster tonight than it was last time !!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-qWoYgNRdMSo/T3ywF...

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-XMau41KvmQc/T3ywF...

In reply to a post by Squirrel:

Zen can't be that good seeing as you're worried by having to have a long term contract with them. I have never been traffic shaped nor have I ever got through to a scripted person - never had to phone support you see.

1. I don't understand why you feel the need to drop in on a Zen forum to boast about BT.

2. If you do ever need to contact BT technical support, you'll have plenty to complain about. I moved from BT to Zen because I got fed up with dealing with BT's call centre. I was so relieved to get to the end of my 12-month contract with BT.

If your broadband has problems that often I'd give up with it and go and watch the TV instead.

However let me get this right - you are happy to pay the earth for a very small allowance on the off chance that if you ever have a problem you'll get good support. Your choice.

The two times I had problems when I was with Zen I didn't get a great deal of help at all - the helpline was closed both times. In fact today must be the 10th or 11th anniversary of one of those incidents - I remember it was after 6:00pm on the Thursday before Easter and I had to wait until the following Tuesday to even report it. Do Zen do 24hr support yet ?

I'm very happy to pay extra knowing that if I ever have a problem I'll get excellent support. Yes, it's my choice, both for my home and my business.

My experience of BT technical support was extremely poor. BT may be able to answer your calls 24 hours a day, but it used to take them days to solve even the simplest problem. What would happen would be that someone would ask me a list of irrelevant questions (such as what web browser do I use), then they would say that my problem needed to be escalated and that someone would call me back within 24 hours (which they never did). Sometimes, I'd get escalated 4-5 times before I could speak to someone who wasn't reading from a script.

When the happy day arrived that my 12-month contract with BT Broadband expired, I telephoned to ask for my MAC code. They asked me how much I was saving with my new ISP. They seemed shocked when I said that I was going to be paying more. They asked if I would stay if they offered me a discount. I said the only thing that would make me stay would be if they could offer me a decent level of technical support. They said, "How about if we put you on the same UK-based technical support as our business customers?". I said, "That sounds very interesting. Would I get a different telephone number to call". They said, "No. You'd call the regular number and you'd ask our Indian call centre to get someone from the UK call centre to call you back. They'd call you back within 24 hours". Needless to say, I said, "No thanks".

I've only had reason to call Zen technical support twice (once for my home connection and one for my office connection). One time, my home connection dropped. The person who answered my call quickly diagnosed a line fault (they didn't even want to know what web browser I used). I was very impressed that he phoned back after BT had cleared the fault to check that everything was working OK. I telephoned Zen technical support immediately after I had an ADSL connection installed at my office because I was experiencing difficulty accessing some websites. The person who answered the phone quickly diagnosed that I needed to change the MTU value on my firewall appliance, which resolved the problem.

I'm very happy with Zen, and I think they offer good value for money. I'm happy for you that you like BT Infinity so much, but I still don't see why you felt the need to brag about it to a Zen forum.

Probably because he's got very little else to do.

I don't know whether they advertise on local regional TV but the only time I ever saw an advertisement for Zen was in PC Magazine in the mid 90s a little while after they'd just started.

I've not read such magazines since getting on the Internet as I read the tech news sites.

On the flipside BT spend millions on TV advertising.

If a service spreads by good reviews and word of mouth and the other by way of limited offers and heavy advertising does that not say something about the quality of the service?

While traffic shaping isn't yet widespread on BT Retail's FTTC/FTTP product marketed as 'Infinity' as more and more ISPs get tough on those abusing 'unlimited' products by the introduction pf traffic shaping on other protocols, regularly contacting customers about their excessive usage (as has happened to my colleague) or being served with their MAC and being told to leave (as also happened with my colleague on three ISPs) then it will become a magnet for those type of people and things will start to slow and BT will go through a stage of upgrades and then will just get fed up and slap on the traffic shaping.

Zen customers know that they have to pay for what they use above their allowance and can buy blocks of allowance that stay on the account until they are used up but in return the company regularly upgrades its network instead of traffic shaping to keep it ahead of demand.


Hmmm, a high capacity network with no traffic shaping and good support but I have to pay a little more for or a service which is good for the moment but has lowsy outsourced support and has to use gimmicks to acquire customers.

tough choice but think I've made the right one by choosing Zen.

I got to know of Zen from their advertisements on London Underground trains ten or more years ago.

Paul

I heard about Zen whilst still at college 15 years ago in the dark days of dial up

I first read of them on this site many years ago when looking at the top ten ISP's.
I always knew that if I ever had to move from Pipex, Zen would be my choice, so once Pipex had been bought & sold twice, that's what I did.
After a year of poor customer service and erratic connections it was all the nicer to be back with an ISP with good customer service, technical knowledge and consistency of service.

How one judges the value depends on what the needs are - in my case, for business use and working at home, this type of service is a must and well worth the costs - but even if I only used it for non-business purposes, I'd still want this level of service.

I hope they don't advertise too much and waste there money on it, just keep doing what they do please.

It's not only usage: I've just had an email telling me that my FTTC connection will be upgraded from 2Mbps upstream to 10Mbps upstream next Monday. Woo!

Paul

--
Paul Hodges

I have no reservations about this service now they are upping the 2mbps to 10mbps. Great value for money - hopefully we'll see them forward on BT's boost to 80/20 when that comes to market.

So.... in the last month they have done the following to me:

1) Doubled my FUP from 50Gb to 100Gb at no extra cost

2) Upped my upload from a 2Mb throttled to the full 10Mb at no extra cost.

I love Zen.

Seems that everybody is getting it. BT's £18/m package is also now 40/10, their expensive £26 package is now 80/20.

I expect it'll only be the £66/month peeps that will get 80mbps downstream out of Zen (which works out as £792/y compared to BT's £312/y).

I was so happy that they had finally made their product competitive in terms of capacity - alas, everybody else is going up too. I know Zen are better than BT - not sure if they are more than twice the price better though.

Edited by Dash (Thu 12-Apr-12 12:48:20)