Zen vs PlusNet

We use Zen heavily at work. I think their tech team and service is absolutely fantastic.

Now I've been on Sky for a few months since they switched me from Be. Never had a problem with Be. On Sky however, every time I upload, my connection dies - no download throughput. No pings.

So enoughs enough.

Got my MAC Code.

Got a choice between Zen and PlusNet. Zen for excellent service, PlusNet for price.

I got the tale of joy from PlusNet, but there's still something about £23 without a phone line that still seems a bit cheap for Unlimited. I recall the days I was on PlusNet ADSL many years back before Be and their "throttling" or "traffic management" solution stopped me from downloading from iTunes until midnight because it thought I was filesharing.

Don't want that again!

So the choices. I really don't want to move the phoneline to Zen, definitely not moving it to PlusNet. Zen look quite reasonable in their phone charges. So....

Going off the top package:

1) Move to Zen - £30 a month + £15~ line rental, 12 month contract, known great service.

2) Move to PlusNet - £23 a month, we keep the BT line which my dad pays, 18 month contract, known to use "traffic management" because they think they know what's important to you. + £50 activation + £5 Static IP once off. -£25 cash back. = £30.

So Zen would cost me £30 (my dad would still pay the line rental) a month.
PlusNet we're looking around £25 a month all in over the 18 months.

So it seems the three issues:

1) Unknown quantity on PlusNet network - will their traffic prioritisation be OK for me?
2) Moving telephone line to Zen - we've never monkeyed around with our phone line for 30 years and we don't want to lose the number, ever, and would want the flexbility of being able to move back to BT and back to my dad's name.
3) 18 month contract of PlusNet vs 12 of Zen.

Zen is looking like the better option, Im just not sure about issue 2 above

Simon

In reply to a post by sjdean:

2) Moving telephone line to Zen - we've never monkeyed around with our phone line for 30 years and we don't want to lose the number, ever, and would want the flexbility of being able to move back to BT and back to my dad's name.

Hi. My line/phone (not BB) had been with BT *for ever* (also around 30 years) and I moved to Zen earlier this year. My BB is with Freeola and didn't want that interrupted so was also a bit worried about moving my phone etc.

Happy to report that it all went smoothly

You don't need to take line rental with Zen. There's an extra charge if you don't though.

I've just gone with Zen Unlimited Fibre 2 without line rental. Total cost is £35.40/month.

In reply to a post by sjdean:

It is possible to take broadband only from Zen if you feel more comfortable keeping the line rental with BT Retail:

http://www.zen.co.uk/home-office/broadband/fibre-opt... - "Can I order Fibre Optic Broadband without line rental?"

The last time that I checked activation would remain free for the Unlimited Fibre 2 broadband only deal, however it's still necessary to buy a router or use your own.

Yeah, but £23 vs £35 is a huge difference, that it makes it more obvious to take the line with Zen. THough their home phone packages appear to have changed. I thought they gave some degree of free minutes. But appears not. Instead they seem to offer cheap rates no call connection fee and unlimited minutes for £6.61 a month which is vs PlusNet offering Evening & Weekend calls for free and anytime unlimited for £5.00 a month. And if phone was taken with PlusNet as well, then it's only £10 a month + line rental.

Eh. Back to the drawing board and thinking of costs.

So now

1) Zen Price and lack of minutes out of the box for a more expensive connection
2) PlusNet Traffic Management concerns
3) PlusNet 18 month contract

Yes, except for the fact is £5 more expensive at £35 (which is now £12 more than the equivalent PlusNet package) so doesn't make a great deal of financial sense. Grrr. I thought the phone package was better too.

I have Zen line rental and it's perfect for my needs as a light landline user (ADSL2+ broadband is with a different provider.) Personally for fibre I would take the Plusnet unlimited 40/20 product on a broadband only "low cost area" deal with a view to upgrading to 80/20 if the line is viable and the service satisfactory, this would probably involve a fresh 18 month contract, although, I believe, not yet confirmed by Plusnet.

Sky unlimited fibre 40/10 - £20/mo
Sky Line rental, retaining original number ~£15/mo
Sky Talk unlimited, free phone calls anytime to most of the world - £5/mo.

If you can get FTTC then it seems like a no brainer to me.

Edited by deleted (Sat 05-Jul-14 15:05:13)

Look at price for Zen home phone (without Fibre/broadband), call package extra but it's a rolling one-month contract with per-second billing and no call connection charge for normal calls so calls actually work out quite a bit cheaper in general, you can then take plusnet 40/20 fibre unlimited (if 40 down is enough for you) at £17.49 per month. For me this was the best option overall (your requirements may differ of course).

[Edit] Plusnet's traffic management on fibre unlimited is pretty unobtrusive these days to be honest.

Edited by deleted (Sat 05-Jul-14 22:15:13)

Zen line rental is great - for me it was such a relief to switch from BT Retail which seemed to become a real pain

The Zen Freeola combination is the best I have found so far,

>2) PlusNet Traffic Management concerns

As Plusnet prioritise rather than rate limit traffic what's the issue?

In reply to a post by Spud2003:

>2) PlusNet Traffic Management concerns

As Plusnet prioritise rather than rate limit traffic what's the issue?

Well I guess if you build a network around streaming and voip, what do you do for people who want to download an ISO? And Im talking Fedora here.

I don't like the idea of being penalised because the bandwidth Im using isn't as important as streaming so Im second class. That's why a less managed network is more appealing to me. But I think at the moment, the price is winning over.

Having used both Plusnet and Zen (among others) I'd pay a bit more and plump for Zen every time, as in my experience when I've had issues they get things sorted quick.

Also find the line rental excellent value.

Edited by techguy (Sun 06-Jul-14 19:20:33)

You aren't penalised, as you would be if you were rate limited, your Fedora download will run at max speed. Just noticed your post in the Plusnet forum, the replies you got there were accurate.

Yeah, we use them at work and really happy with them there. But, the price just kind of edges them out, I thought the phone was going to be a better value too, which might have balanced things out a bit, but with no inclusive minutes, seems a bit... well.... err.... no.... Haven't fully decided. Really not sure how happy I'll be on an 18 month contract.

They do 5,000 inclusive minutes for little more than BT line rental, with NO 60 minute cap to trigger call charges. I have made a five hour call with no charge.

PlusNet block websites. It is one of the reasons I will not return to them (they were my very first broadband provider around a decade ago) as I do not believe it is right to have particular parts of the net censored just because government wishes it to be so.

See my sig (blocked.org.uk) to check if any sites you frequent will be blocked on PlusNet.

Only once served with the court order which is usually to their parent BT

If you want reassurance about how unlimited Plusnet Unlimited is check out this post: http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/4341189-r...

There's no issue with traffic prioritisation (it only comes in to play when you are maxing out your line - your speeds are not affected by other users (excluding BT bottlenecks which affect all ISPs except LLU)), limits on how much you download (I'm expecting more posts from people shifting > 1TB per month) or prety much any other technical aspects.

Where there is an issue is the length of the phone call queues and the time they are taking to respond to tickets. Plusnet customer numbers are growing faster than their support can cope with at present. They have a new support centre in Leeds but it's taking time for the situation to improve.

Summary: when it works it's great, if you have issues it can be frustrating at present.

I do worry about PlusNets business model. on one hand I'd rather spend a little more and get a flawless service like I had with BeThere. But at £30 a month, I couldn't justify Zen. PlusNet seemed good economically with a similar phone package compared to BT, and with the saving on the fibre, I can pay towards extra calls on PlusNet if necessary.

Oh well.

Thanks for your advice all.

It all came down to cost at the end of the day.

I'd have still preferred Zen though, at least I could have got a static IP up front.

Simon

plusnet's model is to make the ££ from voice services and the broadband is used as bait to get those voice customers in, since they owned by BT, they essentially copying BT's model now. They even copy BT's addiction to locking people into contract for every tiny thing such as making people recontract to move to their 40/20 service even tho that has no wholesale recontract.