Noticed some (subjective) slowdowns...

I've been on Zen for the past 10 years. It has always been rock solid. Flawless streaming, video conferencing etc.

In the past month or so I've subjectively noticed slowness in responsiveness when browsing, particularly in mobile apps like Reddit, wife has noticed in Instagram etc. For instance, Reddit comments and content takes forever to load broadband, but as soon as I switch to mobile data it's pretty much instant. Problem is this is really difficult to quantify and troubleshoot.

Any ideas on collecting evidence? Dealing with Zen support (when I last called them, they stated that my Technicolor router was no longer supported, and they wanted to do a WiFi check - I use Ubiquiti APs wired directly into a switch in the house and this isn't a layer 2 problem)

Check your Zen control panel for any recently completed orders that mention something along the lines of "GEA migration".

Zen are moving lots of their customers from BT Wholesale and Talktalk Business backhaul on to their own backhaul network. This has resulted in lower performance for many who have had this change enacted.
Zen don't give any notification this change is happened or that it has happened.

My GEA order was May 2019. Everything has been fine for years, but suddenly things like Reddit comments, LinkedIn comments, picture content take forever to load. Streaming works fine. I've changed routers, using an OPNSense build now with a Draytek modem, but still the same.

Following advice derived from three years supporting people WFH on various ISPs in various parts of the country, been a Zen customer myself since 2014 and also been WFH since March 2020 over my Zen fibre to the premises connection.
If you've noticed a slowdown, irrespective of whether it's in general or specific sites/apps power off your router for two minutes to allow the caps to fully discharge and the session on the various bits of kit to time out then plug back in.
This has solved a variety of problems for those I've been supporting, if this doesn't work, then progress to talking to tech support.

It might be worth checking on your DNS setup, which resolvers do you use?
If you swap to one of the "public resolvers" like 1.1.1.1 (CloudFlare) or 8.8.8.8 (Google) does it help? There are other public dns servers you can try these are just the ones i remember of the top of my head.

In reply to a post by RichTea23:

It might be worth checking on your DNS setup, which resolvers do you use?
If you swap to one of the "public resolvers" like 1.1.1.1 (CloudFlare) or 8.8.8.8 (Google) does it help? There are other public dns servers you can try these are just the ones i remember of the top of my head.

Like the OP, I too have noticed intermittent browsing and I tried alternative DNS which made little difference.

When the browsing deteriorates the speed tests start, (personally I make very few speed tests when the browsing is OK but when it deteriorates the speed test get closer to 500 mbps instead of over 900 mbps. (BT have a speed Guarantee of 700 mbps (whatever that is worth), in my area.

I suspect that the intermittently poor browsing and poor speeds are due to capacity in the Zen Systems and the Zen Traffic Management Systems as my Zen line is via Openreach but I do not know.

I do know the the ookla/Zen gateways move around between London, Manchester, the East Midlands, etc. and the browsing performance and speed test results tend to move in line with the gateway used.

For those who were with Zen and are are now with BT: How is the BT 900 mbps browsing and speed performance in comparison to Zen ?

I'm currently working through issues with them. It's been about 8 weeks now, and I've had about 4-5 OpenReach engineers come out check the line completely, replace connections and cannot see anything wrong. It's to the point where they have warned me not to let Zen just send out an engineer otherwise they'll blacklist me.

Zen are able to see problems, mine has intermittent availability. A few hours working, and then some time with nothing working, sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes longer. Zen sees around 30% constant packet loss with spike of 100% loss which makes it basically unusable. I've got two Fritz, they sent me a technicolour and I bought a Draytek Vigor167.

All have the same problem, which makes me think it's something at Zens end. I've also been with them 10 years.

Do you know if you are on Zen's GEA network? There is at least one user at present who may be having issues due to a recent migration; they're currently awaiting a migration back. I think personally it would be mighty odd for them to be the only one affected!
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,27694.0.html
I myself had poor speed issues after being migrated around this time last year.

If you have been migrated off BTW to Zen it would usually show as a migration order you didn't ask for in your Zen portal account. If your line initially went live on Zen's network though it wouldn't show a migration order (I believe) and you'd have to ask Zen how you are set up.

I was migrated to the GEA back in 2019, so it could be that the GEA is terrible however I don't know how I could possibly get them to move me back after 4 years.

In reply to a post by jimbof:

Do you know if you are on Zen's GEA network? There is at least one user at present who may be having issues due to a recent migration; they're currently awaiting a migration back. I think personally it would be mighty odd for them to be the only one affected!
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,27694.0.html
I myself had poor speed issues after being migrated around this time last year.

If you have been migrated off BTW to Zen it would usually show as a migration order you didn't ask for in your Zen portal account. If your line initially went live on Zen's network though it wouldn't show a migration order (I believe) and you'd have to ask Zen how you are set up.

The Zen Customer Account section has been changed by Zen, (from around the time of the GEA fiasco I noticed that Zen altered and editted your account records behind the scenes which is why I used to take screen shots of the previous records), so these days I suspect that any of us could we flicked over to GEA without any way of our being able to check via the Zen Account Records and I am now not sure Customer Services would tell us if we ask them about GEA or BTW backhaul.

The findings that the poster on the kitz site has been recently reporting on kits reminded me of my own line experiences/failings of a year or two ago and it is sad that no lessons appear to have been learned if the GEA fiasco is still going on behind the scenes.

It kinda put some of our recent cyclical experiences Zen into perspective in that sluggish browsing and half speed issues are nowhere near as bad as the intermittent locking up and crawler speeds I had then.

Personally, I have just about had enough and I am waiting for the next BT tempting offer if BT posters remain happy and a number of Zen posters are disappointed.


.

Update with where I am on this.

I've called tech support 3 times. Each time they've told me "it's your wifi, you need to isolate your network and test". I've done this each time reporting back that I have the same problems. The 2nd call I was told they'd only accept results if I used a fritzbox (been on a technicolor router for years, and then tried OPNSense when I noticed issues). Also told that I "probably have something on my network causing the problem, like an Arlo camera". I don't, and I'd know if I did.

Third call last week to report my findings with the fritzbox (same problems). Told its my wifi. Tech support person went to consult with "seniors" and came back and said there was nothing they could do, it was my network.

So, I've written to Paul Stobart about his company's rubbish tech support and if I don't get some kind of further investigation in the next week it's bye bye Zen. You pay a premium for this company's broadband, and I've been a satisfied customer for 10 years. That satisfaction has been because until now I have never had to call their customer service.

Which? number one my backside

Are you 100% saying you have tested with only one reasonably high spec device connected to the Fritzbox router (using ethernet with wifi switched off) and you still have the same issue?

Not sure Paul Stobart is going to be very interested given he retired back in March 2023. The CEO is once again Richard Tang.

Nuts! So much for Google! Thanks. I'll send it to Richard then....(not that it will do much, but you never know).

Yep. Both hardwired and on WiFi. I've run troubleshooting on far more complicated networks for past work...

In reply to a post by _timbo:

Nuts! So much for Google! Thanks. I'll send it to Richard then....(not that it will do much, but you never know).

I've always found https://www.ceoemail.com/ a good resource when you want to escalate something to the top. This is currently showing Richard Tang as CEO.

In reply to a post by _timbo:

Yep. Both hardwired and on WiFi. I've run troubleshooting on far more complicated networks for past work...

I would also suggest sending a PM on this forum to Andrew@Zen who may be able to look into this for you.

I’ve literally just signed up to the forum to reply to this as I have very similar issues.

High loaded pings on downstream (like 500 to 800ms), 30 to 40% packet loss, a webpage will time out then load on refresh, streaming is fine but the video icons won’t load, weird stuff like that. All speed tests are fine. Zens line tests come back fine so they insist there is no issue. I’ve been dealing with this since May. I’ve been offered new routers more times than I can count. Zen blamed my wlan despite the issues being the same when cabled. Zen finally sent out an OR engineer last week who confirmed no issues on my line or internal cabling. The OR guy also mentioned his team have made visits to other zen customers that week with exactly the same problems. A quick look through posts here and I see similar stuff coming up. I’m convinced that something is wrong on Zens network somewhere. Maybe something in their CDN or a QoS thing. I’ve been using mobile broadband on and off for weeks as it’s more reliable than Zen.

Have you checked your Zen online account? Does it show an order you didn't request for a migration to Zen's network?

The OR engineers in an area reporting the common thread has happened a few times that I've seen. It's not surprising as Zen have their own network equipment in many exchanges. All that gear is shared between more than one user.

Nothing that wasn’t ordered. Just the Residential Copper to Fibre Regrade. Although I have asked the fault manager at zen if there is anything that isn’t shown on the account.

It’s now with a fault manager at Zen. They are doing some investigation at the main exchange and have requested a more senior engineer to look into this.

I’ve always been really happy with zen but this has tested my patience. It took months of battling to just get them to send an OR engineer out.

Edited by Bazerarto2000 (Mon 14-Aug-23 08:41:15)

You might have been provisioned originally onto Zen's network if it was in place at your exchange, and I believe in that case you may have no evidence in your account info that you can see. It could be worth asking Support if you are on the Zen GEA backhaul network or on BTW. Zen have some form for ungenerously stringing along / more generously being unable to resolve performance issues for quite a few customers fortunate to find themselves on Zen's "Next generation" network... for a few of us the only fix they ever managed to do was to migrate us back to a BTW backhaul, which Zen resist.

With it having gone on for so long, and with Openreach finding no fault, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch that this could be a part of your issues.

I asked the question of Zen. I was moved to their backhaul in February. It was done when my service was moved to SOGEA. Nothing in my account specifically about the move to their backhaul. So it's bundled under the Residential Copper to Fibre Regrade order now it seems.

My issues presented in May, so unsure if it's related as I didn't notice any major issues in February when the move happened. That's not to say something hasnt broken since then...

I have asked about being moved back to BTW to rule out a GEA problem and they have refused until they've carried out more testing.

If the connection hasn't been working since May, I'd have been trying to get out of their service a long time ago.

Think about it this way, if you move and it's no better, you can try with your new supplier. Zen aren't exactly covered in glory here, it would be hard for a new supplier to be worse at fixing it.

If you move and it is fixed (every chance, just make sure not to move to a Zen backhaul customer) then job is done.

In reply to a post by jimbof:

or a few of us the only fix they ever managed to do was to migrate us back to a BTW backhaul, which Zen resist.

They resist because it costs them far more to use a BT Wholesale service and their pricing is effectively blended. They charge everyone the same regardless if on or off-net, they make more on the on-net (their own) connections but less, or even at a loss, on the off-net. Similar to what Talk Talk did in the early 2000s where they gradually unbundled more and more exchanges.

We've used Zen in the past for some services, although no new orders due to performance and reliability concerns. Many of which have been reported here.

Whilst I cannot say much at the moment about the repeat issues we've seen. Just this week we moved one customer with continued and repeat packet loss and after the change it stopped. There was no resync during the change. https://ibb.co/8gnS9tG (The red block is just our monitoring pausing and restarting after the internal service alignment and unrelated).

It's a shame that there are still inherent issues but the run around for customers and wholesale partners alike continues.

Matt

For me it makes their services untenable - not because everyone will see the issues (clearly they won't) - but it seems that if you do, you're basically going to be playing support tag with people who appear - for whatever reasons - incapable of fixing the issues until you either leave or convince them to migrate you off-net. And even the later wasn't a solution for me, as they migrated me off only to migrate me back less than a month later...

Disappointing that wholesale customers are doing little better though, you'd expect them to have a better route into support than the great unwashed....

In reply to a post by jimbof:

And even the later wasn't a solution for me, as they migrated me off only to migrate me back less than a month later...

When they started doing the moves to on-net by stealth (no warning or notice), we asked them to stop. Even when they were doing them to exchanges which they had known congestion issues on. As you say, reversion was only temporary as their automation will just do the same later as their goal to move as much away from off-net has not changed.

Matt

In reply to a post by uno:

When they started doing the moves to on-net by stealth (no warning or notice), we asked them to stop. Even when they were doing them to exchanges which they had known congestion issues on. As you say, reversion was only temporary as their automation will just do the same later as their goal to move as much away from off-net has not changed.

Hi Matt

Appreciate the honesty and it has been an eye opener but as you're tagged here as an ISP should you really be making comments like this about another ISP? I am not linked to Zen in any way and also not a fan of theirs but I do question the professionalism of these comments as you really should be discussing this directly with them and pulling all you customers from using their backhaul if you feel that strongly.

Zen has since advised me they are seeing similar issues with a number of customers in the area and they are investigating it. I also know of non-Zen customers having the same problem so I'm led to believe this isn't Zens backhaul at fault. I've run some wiresharks and am seeing drops inbound from Zens London DC. I think the fault is in the parent exchange rather than the local one as some of the zen customers, while in the same area, do not connect to my local exchange but go back to the same headend in town. If it does turn out to be Zens backhaul at fault I'll update here as I'm sure a fault in our headend isn't of massive interest to people here.

Since my fault got escalated to the NOC team at Zen the support has been good. They've been very responsive to my emails and kept me up to date. The main complaint I have was getting it escalated in the first place and the amount of time its taken to get to this point. Since I first raised the fault in May, the ticket has been closed twice (without telling me) and I've been offered no less than 3 new routers and had my WLAN blamed. Some of the suggestions to fix my WLAN were comical, one guy asked me to change my WLAN channel to channel 8. Anyone who knows anything about WLAN knows that would actually make WLAN interference worse on the 2.4Ghz spectrum. When they eventually agreed to send an OR engineer out it was nearly 4 months from when I flagged the issues. So its just been pure pain from May until around now where there seems to be some progress.

In reply to a post by dect:

as you really should be discussing this directly with them and pulling all you customers from using their backhaul if you feel that strongly.

The comments are fair as Zen has not been just a retail provider for many years, where if that was the case, I would agree. When they started to become a channel partner, it opens this up. In reality, it is no different to commenting on BT Wholesale or Talk Talk Business; which in the past have both seen issues affecting all sorts of customers on varying CPs and has welcomed across the board comments both from "end users" and other ISP/CPs alike - this is no different.

Similarly, we are a customer of Zen too, have suffered much of what others reports and still now, years on, the same pattern and faults are reported. The two replies were not only to demonstrate how things can change from their on-net network but also explain why services moved back to off-net find themselves back on-net soon after.

Matt

Give Zen a realistic deadline to either sort it or move you to BTW backhaul, otherwise this could run and run.

Remind them if they move you to BTW backhaul it will help them prove if the local issues are with the Zen Backhaul or somewhere else, thats assuming they want to find the issue.

In reply to a post by uno:

The comments are fair

Hi Matt

With the greatest respect if you believe that then we both have a difference of what the word professionalism means.

All the best

My experience was that until I specifically told them of my intention to leave in 30 days, they were basically treating it like they had infinite time. 30 days should give them plenty of time, and is in line with the OFCOM Code of Practice that they are signed up to. I think the migration back to BTW takes 14 days fixed pretty much.

In reply to a post by jimbof:

My experience was that until I specifically told them of my intention to leave in 30 days, they were basically treating it like they had infinite time. 30 days should give them plenty of time, and is in line with the OFCOM Code of Practice that they are signed up to. I think the migration back to BTW takes 14 days fixed pretty much.

I personally wouldn't trust them to solve issues with their backhaul considering the unsolved issues of the past few years. I think as soon as you get an issue that is not a typical issue with the Openreach/CityFibre infrastructure its best to look at exiting ASAP. What you did was very sensible.

If you are already out of contract with Zen it only takes 14 days to migrate to BT, (or another ISP), via Openreach. - That was how I escaped.

BT = Download 926.26Mbps / Upload 110.32 Mbps / Ping 12.87 ms / Jitter 0.47ms

If you are still under contract with Zen, leaving early could be a hassle but as I understand it there is a procedure similar to the 30 day time to repair deadline that you are setting in motion.

Better still speak with Zen and ask them to let you leave early.

I was talking about how long it takes them to migrate you from Zen's GEA backhaul network back to BTW backhaul, not migration off Zen totally.

Personally my own experience is that I'd recommend the migration away from Zen (I did - to AAISP - and haven't looked back), but a lot of folk seem quite attached to them... They've built up quite a bit of loyalty over the years.

Edited by jimbof (Wed 16-Aug-23 15:34:16)

Quick update. The problem is now fixed. It took a 2 star Trustpilot review to kick them into providing a support engineer from the next level up. Still had to jump through some hoops. It looks like one hop on my route through Zen changed

51-148-244-10.dsl.zen.co.uk [51.148.244.10] moved to 51-148-244-8.dsl.zen.co.uk [51.148.244.8]

Nothing else changed. Has worked flawlessly on my old Technicolor router and my OPNSense/Draytek conbo.

Edited to say that this is on the SOGEA network. To me it looks like they have one router that is causing a problem but they can't or won't "see it" as a problem.

Edited by _timbo (Mon 04-Sep-23 11:08:34)

It genuinely amazes me that Zen have had this issue for over a year and seemingly have no idea what's causing it

and lost many customers from these forums. If only a poor review fixed stuff.

Now, with Zen, pray it stays fixed. They seem to have a mechanism to revert fixes.

Well clearly it's a problem with a router. They definitely have their heads in the sand regarding their own network. Their first line support team is terrible at recording information and actions taken in tickets. Frustrating to have to go through the same stuff again and again and to be repeatedly told "my senior manager tells me it's your wifi".

I tend to setup a router and just leave it as it is. Having been on zen for > 10 years I've generally been very happy. However on having a look this week at the internet speed results on my AX88U running Merlin i saw:-

2021/1/31 60.36Mbps DL 18.02Mbps upload
2023/10/4 40.24Mbps DL 18.52Mbps upload

In the My orders on the old portal I'm getting

19/04/2023 Broadband Network Migration Destination Supplier: BT Wholesale zenXXXXXX@zen

I have a new ethernet cable between router and the BT supplied ADSL modem and my DNS is Googles (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4). The only other thing that's happened is my street is now cabled up for Full Fibre/FTTP. Given this is a significant drop is this down to migration to Zen's GEA or is the portal order entry saying I'm still on BTW? Is there anything else I should try before giving the service team a prod? If not should I just cut my losses and bail to BT Full Fibre / AAISP (expensive) or someone else?

Edited by davemcwish2 (Wed 04-Oct-23 18:45:23)

What is your sync rate? There are nearly three years between those dates, it's within the realms of being a crosstalk issue.

In reply to a post by jpm:

What is your sync rate? There are nearly three years between those dates, it's within the realms of being a crosstalk issue.

How do I find that out please?

I plugged in a Vigor 166 and get:-

> adsl status

  ---------------------- ATU-R Info (hw: annex A, f/w: annex A/B/C) -----------
   Running Mode            :      17A       State                : SHOWTIME
   DS Actual Rate          : 48943000 bps   US Actual Rate       : 20000000 bps
   DS Attainable Rate      : 58265116 bps   US Attainable Rate   : 20916000 bps
   DS Path Mode            :        Fast    US Path Mode         :        Fast 
   DS Interleave Depth     :        8       US Interleave Depth  :        1 
   NE Current Attenuation  :       17 dB    Cur SNR Margin       :        7  dB
   DS actual PSD           :    11. 7 dB    US actual PSD        :     6. 8  dB
   NE CRC Count            :        0       FE CRC Count         :        0
   NE ES Count             :        0       FE  ES Count         :        0
   Xdsl Reset Times        :        0       Xdsl Link  Times     :        1
   ITU Version[0]          : fe004452       ITU Version[1]       : 41590000
   VDSL Firmware Version   : 12-3-2-3-0-5   [with Vectoring support] 
   Power Management Mode   : DSL_G997_PMS_L0 
   Test Mode               : DISABLE 
   nBandPlan               :        0 
   VRX618 PMI Driver       : DSL PMI Driver, Version 1.4.0 
   VRX618 Driver DataPath  : VRX618 Driver DataPath, Version 1.1.7 
   VRX618 PCI EP Driver    : VRX618 PCI EP Driver, Version 1.1.0 
   VRX618 ADSL Annex       : A 
  -------------------------------- ATU-C Info ---------------------------------
   Far Current Attenuation :        0 dB    Far SNR Margin       :        6  dB
   CO ITU Version[0]       : b5004244       CO ITU Version[1]    : 434dc190
   DSLAM CHIPSET VENDOR    : < BDCM >

Is that what you're after ?

Edited by davemcwish2 (Thu 05-Oct-23 22:09:25)

In case it helps, BT Wholesale performance test results are here