Price for Life is worthless if the product is inferior.

Earlier in the year BT advertized an offer of about £40 per month for 900 mbps via Openreach FTTP together with useful freebies such as Xbox Game Pass etc. and my finger was hovering above the transfer to BT button, (not because of the lower price at the time but because the Zen performance was sometimes cyclical probably caused by the Zen Traffic Management Systems or lack of capacity at Zen). - Who knows?

However, at the time of the BT offer my Zen line was mostly cooking on gas and that created a dilemma in I was unsure if all Openreach FTTP Providers were the same and why move if it is no better: so I stayed.

A few days after the tempting BT Offer ended my Zen line deteriorated, (yes; I know that with the well known regular BT price increases in about three years time the tempting £40 offer price will cost more than the fixed just over £50 per month that I presently pay Zen but I am not totally swayed by price as Quality Of Service is my main criterion). - A Price for Life is worthless if the product is inferior.

The Zen deterioration is nowhere near what it was in the bad old days of GEA but my previously rock solid consistently above 900 mbps connection, (day and night), at the time of the BT offer deteriorated to intermittent sluggish browsing, (other DNS tried), and speeds down to 500 mbps and sometimes lower but an average of 700 mbps), - I only tend to check the speeds when I notice that the browsing is poor.

Zen Customer Support have had me doing the usual of resetting the ONT, Factory Resetting the Router, buying a rabbits foot, (oops that was not them in fairness they did not suggest that), and faffing about doing other stuff and supplying reading but the Zen speed guarantee is only 500 mbps.

According to Zen Customer Support I am still back on BTW backhaul.

Obviously, I had checked the Zen Broadband Status Checker for my area.

I was not sure if BT would be any better so I asked a question on the BT board and anecdotal evidence is that it is better with no loss of speed.

https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/bt/t/4739033-is-bt...

I am presently waiting for the next tempting offer from from BT but I would welcome objective view either way.

eg. In the last nine months; Has anyone transferred the other way, (ie, from BT 900 mbps FTTP to 900 mbps FTTP Zen), because the BT 900 mbps Openreach FTTP was inferior in some way ?

To rule out the GEA fiasco it may be better to restrict movements to the last nine months;

Edited by Fido (Tue 11-Jul-23 15:34:22)

In reply to a post by Fido:

In the last nine months; Has anyone transferred the other way, (ie, from BT 900 mbps FTTP to 900 mbps FTTP Zen), because the BT 900 mbps Openreach FTTP was inferior in some way ?

It seems that, (in the last nine months), no one has moved from BT 900 mbps FTTP to Zen 900 mbps FTTP.

I asked the question for balance.

In the days of FTTC and prior to that migrations from BT to Zen were common as Zen was better and now in the days of FTTP is could be one day traffic the other way.

had endless problems with Zen, mainly on their backhaul, less so on BT wholesale's.

With AAISP on BTS's backhaul, 110%

Saying that, when Zen worked, it was fine.

I think their support is very lacking.

Summing up, BT's backhaul is fine, as are many others. Zen has problems. I would leave ASAP.

There are sufficient people reporting problems with Zen that it's probably symptomatic of a real problem.

As luck would have it: Today BT have an offer of £40.99 per month for 900 Mbps FTTP so I have signed up to migrate to BT..

To start with I will be paying BT around 20% less than I pay Zen and in about three years time I expect to be paying BT around 20% more than I would have paid Zen with the Zen Price For Life but my main criterion is reliability, low hassle, snappy browsing and reliable speed.

Relatively speaking the Zen connection seem quite good today but it not the sparking.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/16893243748...

On the whole I like Zen and I wish them well but a few years ago when I fist moved from Zen 80/20 FTTC, (which had been very good), to Zen 900 Mbps FTTP, (which was often absolutely dire I would have left in a heartbeat). - Last year it settled down and this year it is cyclical so I have had enough.

Anecdotal evidence says BT 900 Mbps FTTP is better but I will find out in August.

Regards,
Fido