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I signed up to Zen on the 900 Fibre package with Price for Life Guarantee when I first moved into this house, wasn't that impressed with the speeds at the time. I believe they only guarantee 450 down, where other ISP's guarantee speeds of 700+.
Due to this, I regraded to the 500 package at 49.99 a month where I get pretty stable speeds. However, fast forward 12 months and I've had VM at the door recently offering 1G speeds for approximately 35 a month. I'd rather not go to VM as their customer support is atrocious and their in contract price rises are daylight robbery. I phoned up Zen retentions to see what they could do and they've offered a regrade to 1G at 44 a month, but I'd lose the Price for Life Guarantee and instead be placed on the Price Promise of no in contract raises.
As speeds increase, prices for the same speeds usually come down over time. I'd imagine in 5-10 years time we'll have 10G speeds. What would you do?
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What would you do? I am staying on the Full Fibre 300 package.
It is worth it just for peace of mind - Trouble free for 20+ years 
Zen Full Fibre - Fritzbox 7530
Mobile:- EE PAYG - TP-Link Archer MR200
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I wouldnt ditch a for life £50 for only for contract £45.
An average rise of 5% a year would have the £44 catch up within 3 years. (Very almost at 2 years).
VM Gig1 - AAISP L2TP
Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 22-Feb-23 19:44:04)
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I wonder how sustainable the "price for life" will turn out to be.
Eventually as costs rise Zen will be left funding these price guarantees out of new customer sales (an odd situation, usually it's the reverse). Could harm their competitiveness, ultimately leading to a higher proportion of their customers being on price for life, which would be a pretty destructive feedback loop...
Maybe they'll get a lot of folk migrating to to other services and losing their price guarantee with FTTP availability, but I really don't see that many upgrading to FTTP if their copper service works well..
Also, will they maintain the price for life when the digital voice switchover is happening? If they won't then that might change the math on retaining the price for life guarantee.
I say this all wearing a pair of Doc Marten's "for life" shoes that they replace for me every time they break for £20... I'm getting burried in these puppies (or their descendents) only because I can't pass it on in my will! lol. DM closed that scheme, too, though still continue to honour claims for the forseeable.
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I'm currently in this situation. I've been on a 2 year contract paying £62.99 a month and the period is due to end soon.
I can either stick with it or renew my contract and pay £55 per month however I would lose the price guarantee I imagine.
I can't decide what to do.
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I'm currently in this situation. I've been on a 2 year contract paying £62.99 a month and the period is due to end soon.
I can either stick with it or renew my contract and pay £55 per month however I would lose the price guarantee I imagine.
I can't decide what to do.
I'm in exactly the same position with presumably the same service, my FTTP 900 minimum contract ends 30th March so faced with the same decision.
I'd still get the contract price guarantee on a new contract which over the 24 month term would save me 192 pounds so quite significant, but then I would be at the mercy of whatever pricing is in March 2025.
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I would stick with the 500M service and the price-for-life guarantee.
I believe they only guarantee 450 down, where other ISP's guarantee speeds of 700+.
I bet you would never notice the difference, unless looking at a Speedtest app.
Most wifi devices are not capable of more than 300-400Mbps even sat right next to the wireless access point.
And even if you are lucky enough to find a site which is able to deliver traffic to you at a gigabit (say Apple iOS/macOS updates), the time to download is far smaller than the time to install.
TBH, I don't think most people could tell the difference between a 160/30 and a 900/110 service, apart from those who do a lot of uploading. That's one reason that the services are so asymmetric - to force people who need fast upload speeds to buy a more expensive package.
I'd imagine in 5-10 years time we'll have 10G speeds
If and when you *need* those speeds, you can revisit the decision.
Equally, the price-for-life guarantee at £50 might not be worth all that much, when in the long term prices are going down. The main benefit is avoiding the inflation-linked rises which the big providers are baking in for existing customers (note that new customers continue to get lower prices!), and avoiding being locked into a contract.
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I would stick with the 500M service and the price-for-life guarantee.
I believe they only guarantee 450 down, where other ISP's guarantee speeds of 700+.
I bet you would never notice the difference, unless looking at a Speedtest app.
Most wifi devices are not capable of more than 300-400Mbps even sat right next to the wireless access point.
And even if you are lucky enough to find a site which is able to deliver traffic to you at a gigabit (say Apple iOS/macOS updates), the time to download is far smaller than the time to install.
TBH, I don't think most people could tell the difference between a 160/30 and a 900/110 service, apart from those who do a lot of uploading. That's one reason that the services are so asymmetric - to force people who need fast upload speeds to buy a more expensive package.
I'd imagine in 5-10 years time we'll have 10G speeds
If and when you *need* those speeds, you can revisit the decision.
Equally, the price-for-life guarantee at £50 might not be worth all that much, when in the long term prices are going down. The main benefit is avoiding the inflation-linked rises which the big providers are baking in for existing customers (note that new customers continue to get lower prices!), and avoiding being locked into a contract.
You're clearly not a gamer, there's a massive difference between 500 and 900 as it means installing games nearly twice as quickly.
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You're clearly not a gamer, there's a massive difference between 500 and 900 as it means installing games nearly twice as quickly.
How often do you actually do this though? The cost/benefit here is very small for most people but if it is your main hobby then I guess you are able to justify that.
OPNSense on Topton J4125 - SWISH Fibre 900
PiHole/AdGuard home - Unifi for Wifi
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You're clearly not a gamer, there's a massive difference between 500 and 900 as it means installing games nearly twice as quickly.
I'm not these days, but if I were, I expect I'd spend a lot more time playing a game than downloading it (especially if I'd paid for it).
Even if it takes you 6 minutes instead of 11 minutes to download a 40GB game, either way you're going to have to do something else while you wait.
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You're clearly not a gamer, there's a massive difference between 500 and 900 as it means installing games nearly twice as quickly.
How often do you actually do this though? The cost/benefit here is very small for most people but if it is your main hobby then I guess you are able to justify that.
If its new games probably often, modern practice is games as a service model, which means frequent updates to download. One game in my library has on average two 40+ gig patches a week.
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I wouldnt ditch a for life £50 for only for contract £45.
An average rise of 5% a year would have the £44 catch up within 3 years. (Very almost at 2 years).
Picking this up late but while you're correct that the third year (which a consumer wouldn't be in contract for) would cost £48.51/month if there was a 5% rise at the end of each 12-month period, over that time period you will also have spent £135.48 additional on the "price for life" contract over the cheaper contract that increases each year (£72 difference in year one, £45.60 in year two, £17.88 in year three), which would need to be factored in.
I can't make a £5 premium for a "no price rises" contract make financial sense - if year 1 is £45/month then that's a year 1 total of £540, year 2 even with an unheard of 20% increase is £54/month for a year 2 total of £648 and a two year total of £1188. Paying £50 for 24 months is £1200.
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I have yet to find game whose download server will go anywhere near saturating a connection. Most are waaaay below that.
To me the fast connection allows me to do various things concurrently. Rarely does any one "task" do very much more than use a small segment of the bandwidth.
Others experience may differ of course.
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Steam, should easily saturate a gigabit connection, if it doesnt then either equipment or ISP issues in my opinion.
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I can't make a £5 premium for a "no price rises" contract make financial sense - if year 1 is £45/month then that's a year 1 total of £540, year 2 even with an unheard of 20% increase is £54/month for a year 2 total of £648 and a two year total of £1188. Paying £50 for 24 months is £1200.
Yes: but after the 2 years are up you are then on a flexible rolling arrangement where you're not forced to recontract for another 2 years to avoid the out-of-contract price hike.
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I wouldnt ditch a for life £50 for only for contract £45.
An average rise of 5% a year would have the £44 catch up within 3 years. (Very almost at 2 years).
I must confess that the presence of the Price For Life can create a dilemma if the service provided by each of the alternative ISP's is equally good.
The problem is that you cannot properly tell if the service provided is equally good or possibly even better until after you jump ship and you join the other ISP.
My own Zen Price for Life Guarantee is just over £50 per month and just a couple of weeks ago the BT price for 900 mbps was just under £45 per month plus the benefit of added incentives from BT such as one years Xbox Game Pass etc. so I did consider changing to BT and I may have made an error in not doing so.
At the time my 900mbps Zen line seemed OK but the Zen performance is cyclical. - I am not totally motivated by price alone but we all like to save a few Bob. - Good performance is the key.
As others have calculated the BT Deal would have cost less for at least 2 years and would probably cost more after 3 years dependent on new deal availability.
If the BT Performance was consistently better, even if the price was not lower, it would be silly to stay with Zen for a Price For Life but the issue is of consistently good performance.
18 months ago, when the Zen performance was dire, I would have jumped ship to BT without hesitation but these days for the most part the Zen Speeds Tests have been OK but I am not I am not sure that the way in which web pages are resolved is good.
Every so often my finger does still hover over the transfer to BT button when the Zen performance has a blip.
If anyone has left Zen for BT kindly let us know how things compare between them with regard to speed of connection and the speed in which web pages are resolved.
Regards,
Fido
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I'll have to try them as an experiment.
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My xbox will frequently download a game at ~850mbps.
Edited by zebb_edi (Fri 21-Apr-23 08:21:09)
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On price guarantee at 48pcm for 900 package. Can't wait to end the contract in 11 months time. Netomnia have installed in our street. 1gb symmetrical for £29 pcm with no price rise during the contract. Zen/openreach just can't compete with this....
ZEN 900 + Opnsense with IPV6 - ex ECI cab,
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