Six months to fix throughput problem

Hi,

So as I've mentioned in some other threads, I switched to Zen around the middle of September and I've noticed a significant throughput problem since joining. I.e., I am consistently getting around 15Mbps of actual throughput (from a wired ethernet connection to the think broadband speed test) even though my line is syncing at around 64-66Mbps.

I raised this with Zen's support and they came back within a few days to say they have noticed a problem and would monitor my connection for a while. Then telling me they've passed my case to their Network Operations team.

However, today I received this update:

Hope all is currently well.

I have a little update on the Performance issue,

we have managed to get plans in place to upgrade the backhauls to resolve the issue in the near future

Please be aware this could take some time still and we apologise for this.

Please bear with us whilst these upgrades are taking place.

Followed by this response when I questioned what "in the near future" means:

Thank you for getting back into contact with Zen Internet Technical Support. In regards to your performance issue, unfortunately there isn't a time scale as of yet for when this will be moved, we are advising customers this could be within the next 6 months. However, this time scale is more towards all of the exchanges being moved not just yourself.

This seems to imply that it is not a fault, but rather that they don't have the capacity to supply the service they have sold.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to do from here? Obviously, I'm happy to give them a reasonable amount of time to sort out the issue, but I'm not sure that six months is a reasonable time. Also, does anyone know if this is actually a problem with Zen or would I run into the same issue switching to any other FTTC-based service?

http://maps.thinkbroadband.com/#!lat=55.378050998931...

May help you to identify if others nearby are getting better or worse speeds with other providers.

Six months would fail more reasonable time frame tests, so time to see if you can migrate away without any penalties

Hi,

Sorry to hear about this. Could you PM me your username please, and I'll take a look.

Thanks,

Jon

HI, sounds like one of the guys in tech support has got their wires a little crossed and confused a programme of upgrades with work to fix your issue.

I'm sure we'll be able to resolve things much quicker than 6 months.

As Jon has already mentioned, please drop one of us a PM and we'll get on the case.

Thanks

Thanks, I have sent a PM.

Thanks, I've got the PM. Andy and myself will work things out between us, and get back to you.

Thanks,

Jon

I can vouch for Jon and Andrew. They will get to the bottom of it and fix it.

I had similar issues too and Jon was able to get them resolved.

Your in touch with the right people

Great, thanks very much.

Hi,

I've got some general clarification around this, and also have caught up with Tech Support to make sure the issue mentioned in this thread is being dealt with correctly.

As previously mentioned, we�ve identified a potential issue with the backhaul into some of our on-net exchanges. We�ve been working on a plan to apply a fix to all of our exchanges, but due to the scale of this, and the amount of testing involved in an estate-wide rollout, this has taken a number of months to plan, and will take a number of months to implement. We�ve now got the overall plan together, and are in the very early stages of rolling this out. This will take at least six months, which is what has been communicated above.

In a specific set of circumstances, this issue can result in the slow throughput issues that some of you have been seeing. We have extra monitoring in place for potentially affected exchanges, and are prioritising ones which we can quickly, and proactively fix, and are likely to become impacted in the near future. If any customers are experiencing slow throughput/packet loss, and our tests indicate that the issue is caused by the exchange backhaul issue, we can get these exchanges to the top of the queue, and looked at immediately. In most cases, we�ll be able to get these fixed within a week (and hopefully much sooner), however this won�t be the case for all. For any exceptions, we also have a number of alternative fixes, which we can look at on a case-by-case basis. This is the fix that has been applied for a number of people on this forum already - so thank you to those who have been in touch.

Any customers experiencing performance problems should raise the issue with our Technical Support teams. They have a set of tests they can perform to pinpoint the issue, and a clear escalation path to follow if we positively identify the exchange backhaul to be the cause.

As Andrew said, it looks like the above information was lost in translation a little. We'll try to make sure we learn from this to reduce the chance of it happening again.

Please let myself or Andrew know if you have any questions.

Cheers,

Jon