Slow Speeds with Zen. What's happened to Zen?

I have been with Zen for a couple of years now. I joined based on their reputation, (upon reading this forum) and they have provided a good service. However, recently I have noticed severe speed problems. It should be around 65Mbps. At the moment my upload speed is faster than my download.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

The speed problem goes away after midnight. I have raised this issue with Zen. Hopefully they can solve my problem.
Just in case they can't solve my problem. What other ISP do you guys recommend. I pay £55 including line rental. I don't mind paying that amount if I can get the sort of speeds that Zen use to provide.

Edited by deleted (Tue 14-Feb-17 22:26:22)

For those kind of prices it may be worth looking at what AAISP are offering

AAISP

In reply to a post by Raven7:

I have been with Zen for a couple of years now. I joined based on their reputation, (upon reading this forum) and they have provided a good service. However, recently I have noticed severe speed problems. It should be around 65Mbps. At the moment my upload speed is faster than my download.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

The speed problem goes away after midnight. I have raised this issue with Zen. Hopefully, they can solve my problem.
Just in case they can't solve my problem. What other ISP do you guys recommend? I pay £55 including line rental. I don't mind paying that amount if I can get the sort of speeds that Zen use to provide.

Are you on Zen's backhaul or BT wbmc Backhaul? It sounds like peak time congestion, if you are on BT's backhaul you will need to have run a BT perf test
Then complete the second part further diagnostics , if your throughput is low enough (sub 40-mbps) it will ask you if you want to test further, TAP3 test

You have to follow the instructions shown before continuing as this walled garden test tests from a different part of BTW's network and also is isolated from the rest of the internet The ISP can see the results and then forward to BT so if you have run the TAP3
Don't run another BTW speed test until the ISP has saved the results as subsequent tests overwrite each other as only the most recent result is stored the BT speed test server
I have found that once you are able to demonstrate the issue Zen usually are fairly quick in escalating to get it fixed
Though they do sometimes fall for the BTW ploy to sell them a SFI engineer service to fix a contention or congestion issue When this will likely result in a Fee, and won't help fix such issues

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 15-Feb-17 10:30:52)

Have a look at some of the other ISP forums in this place, as it might give some idea of what other ISP (problems) are like. For instance I notice the only thread on AAISP since Nov 2016 has been about, guess what, single thread congestion, with pages and pages of comments since then....

In reply to a post by nrms:

Have a look at some of the other ISP forums in this place, as it might give some idea of what other ISP (problems) are like. For instance I notice the only thread on AAISP since Nov 2016 has been about, guess what, single thread congestion, with pages and pages of comments since then....

That thread is only from one person who has changed ISPs several times and generates a high volume of posts! It does not reflect in any way the service you get from AAISP.

In reply to a post by clivers:

That thread is only from one person who has changed ISPs several times and generates a high volume of posts! It does not reflect in any way the service you get from AAISP.

Agreed.

Sometimes it's worth looking at content rather than the cold stats.

What's the old saying? Oh yes I remember: There's lies, damn lies and statistics.

Any update, Raven7?

Hi,

If you DM me your account details I'll get our support team to investigate ASAP.

Also, if you're paying £55 /month, and haven't added any upgrades e.g. unlimited calls etc., you're likely on one of our older packages. It's possible we could switch you onto one of our newer packages a save you a few £ each month. I'll also check this out for you.

Best regards,

Andrew
Broadband Product Manager

Sorry, I have been very busy with work.

The support team have asked me to provide speeds over the course of a day. I haven't been able to provide this at the moment. However, when I do I will update you guys.

PS Thank you guys for replying.

Edited by deleted (Sun 19-Feb-17 15:32:03)

Post deleted by ukhardy07

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 19-Feb-17 19:05:25)

In reply to a post by Raven7:

I have been with Zen for a couple of years now. I joined based on their reputation, (upon reading this forum) and they have provided a good service. However, recently I have noticed severe speed problems. It should be around 65Mbps. At the moment my upload speed is faster than my download.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

The speed problem goes away after midnight. I have raised this issue with Zen. Hopefully they can solve my problem.
Just in case they can't solve my problem. What other ISP do you guys recommend. I pay £55 including line rental. I don't mind paying that amount if I can get the sort of speeds that Zen use to provide.

That is really bad, here is one of my speedtests (done literally just now 7PM Sunday, peak times). With BT Broadband not Zen.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

For £55 if your speedtests are not coming out nice and flat like that I would be very unhappy! See what Zen can do but in the worst case consider moving provider. I pay less than half what you do.

What speed are you synced at?

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 19-Feb-17 19:07:55)

mine here

Zen use both their own backhaul and BTW backhaul, so this problem may not be within zen's network, If a BTW issue it would affect the OP in a similar way if they were with other ISP's who use BT WBMC for backhaul, And there is nothing that can be done without some form of proof that throughput is being degraded below what BTW think is an acceptable threshold of 40mbps via the TAP3 test results showing this ideally

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 19-Feb-17 19:15:09)

In reply to a post by tommy45:

mine here

Zen use both their own backhaul and BTW backhaul, so this problem may not be within zen's network, If a BTW issue it would affect the OP in a similar way if they were with other ISP's who use BT WBMC for backhaul

yours looks perfect
I agree with you entirely

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

In reply to a post by tommy45:

mine here

Zen use both their own backhaul and BTW backhaul, so this problem may not be within zen's network, If a BTW issue it would affect the OP in a similar way if they were with other ISP's who use BT WBMC for backhaul

yours looks perfect
I agree with you entirely

It wasn't a few weeks back due to (BTW SVLAN) reaching it's limit at peak and even some other times of the day, fortunately, i was able to demonstrate the problem using the BT tap3 test and Zen got it sorted, BTW are obstructive to isp's IMO they will nearly always try and sell them a SFI engineer visit as part of their scripted trouble shooting (for peak time contention issues)?? this results in a delay, as the isp has to then escalate further up the chain and get someone who does know what they are doing , When Zen told me bt said i need an engineer , i laughed, then said pointless and i'm not prepared to pay for it, as they won't find any fault with the line or my equipment , and that if it was either it wouldn't only show issues during evening peak time and only some days of the week

you always seem to have SVLAN issues tommy

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

you always seem to have SVLAN issues, Tommy

Well this year was down to Zen, as they decided to migrate my circuit from BTwbmc to their own backhaul But this coincided with a line fault and there was no advantage in latency in particular to US, as well as some within the UK Due to IMO their cack-handed way that the circuit was routed by zen 100% via London, when are in a unique position because they have a data center & peering nearer to my location, situated in Greater MCR why they did not utilise their advantage over others i don't know
But the 2 previous BTWBMC issues as a Zen customer were a result of the Congested Svlan being inherited from my previous ISP PLUSNOT who did not get BT to fix this issue, and then BTW failing to put my circuit on a Svan that actually had the needed capacity

Also as a direct result of being migrated to zen's backhaul, the single thread performance just died, it would start off at full speed then rapidly drop off to sub 10mbps, or start at ADSL speeds, Plus they for some reason ( By default)re-enabled IVP6 on my account which locked me to 1 gateway, do you want me to go on?

They IMO could not be bothered or didn't have a scooby what was causing the Single threaded issue i was seeing after the GEA migration,

Even after the migration being reversed (Back onto BTW WBMC) Which you can see on MDWS,16/11/16 onwards (over 300 days of continuous uptime) IIRC ,
This single thread low throughput issue persisted, I in the process of elimination testing, did accidently find a workaround, by taking the router out of the equation, connecting to PC directly with modem, then getting IPV6 disabled on the account again, to give a choice of gateways again . full throughput single thread, then reconnected router worked fine but on only one gateway at first, then after a week or so it worked as before the issue, apart from a slightly lazy single thread which gives a slightly lower 2mbps speed test result on the single threaded part, I seem to recall asking you your thoughts on what the underlying issue could be, but i'm still waiting on that one

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 19-Feb-17 23:18:12)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

They IMO could not be bothered or didn't have a scooby what was causing the Single threaded issue i was seeing after the GEA migration,

Even after the migration being reversed (Back onto BTW WBMC) Which you can see on MDWS,16/11/16 onwards (over 300 days of continuous uptime) IIRC ,
This single thread low throughput issue persisted, I in the process of elimination testing, did accidently find a workaround, by taking the router out of the equation, connecting to PC directly with modem, then getting IPV6 disabled on the account again, to give a choice of gateways again . full throughput single thread, then reconnected router worked fine but on only one gateway at first, then after a week or so it worked as before the issue, apart from a slightly lazy single thread which gives a slightly lower 2mbps speed test result on the single threaded part, I seem to recall asking you your thoughts on what the underlying issue could be, but i'm still waiting on that one

Interesting. Despite doing the SVLAN dance with Zen/BTW several times I still have a single thread speed that runs way lower than it should and Zen havent been able to resolve that for me either.