Full Fibre from Zen?

What Network does Zen use - I am in a City Fibre/Openreach overlap area. Currently on FTTC with BT (no contract) and FTTP has just become available - City Fibre say Zen is a customer and so do Openreach - I can't find the info on the Zen website so was wondering if anyone knew, or is it hit and miss depending on routing? - I am in Warwickshire.
BT are £48.78 inc My AnyTime calls discounted to £1.29 a month for 64-70mbps
BT are offering 150mbps and 500mbps for same price and 900mbps for£1 more for Halo3.
I already have the Fritz 7530 from a failed attempt to move to Zen during Covid and would stick to that.

Is there a benefit in having Digital Voice, I rarely use the landline anyway. Is £6 a month worth it from Zen or not?
I also notice BT has guaranteed download of 425mbps compared to Zen's 250 mbps guarantee. for 500mbps - is that a red flag?

Zen use CityFibre. I'm paying £40/month for 900Mbps plus £1.44/month to Andrews & Arnold for VoIP.
Oookla Speedtest says that I'm getting 920Mbps download and 941Mbps upload, ping 9ms.

+1 for Zen. £32 monthly for 300Mbps symmetrical and £1.44 to A&A for the landline.

BT is not symmetrical so upload will be limited to 30 or 40 Mbps

Get zen to install with no phone, then order a&a's VoIP numbe transfer. You can use the fritzbox as the phone hub
A&A service transfer will cease the existing fttc when the number ports.

It's worth checking your postcode on the Cityfibre website to see if they actually have Zen where you are. In my area there is no Zen on Cityfibre, but in other areas of the same county it is. Zen through Cityfibre, if available, is cheaper than Zen on Openreach

In reply to a post by wiggsc00:

+1 for Zen. £32 monthly for 300Mbps symmetrical and £1.44 to A&A for the landline.

BT is not symmetrical so upload will be limited to 30 or 40 Mbps

Get zen to install with no phone, then order a&a's VoIP numbe transfer. You can use the fritzbox as the phone hub
A&A service transfer will cease the existing fttc when the number ports.

If you went for 900Mb with an Openreach based provider then the upload is 110Mb not 30 or 40
In areas were Zen are available on both CF and OR , presumably they would offer access to both , if they have the appropriate interconnections etc , in those cases it should be clear which network the service is being offer over , and obviously you should be able to favour one over the other if you wanted to

Edited by Iniltous (Tue 07-Nov-23 16:17:57)

TY Garet
No Zen on CityFibre, just some unheard of operators promising 900 up and 900 down, plus Gigabit, AA, Idnet & Vodafone.

No problem.

For what it's worth I went with IDNet, but only the 150/150 tier, though it seems to actually run at 160/160. The main reason being they do static ipv4 and ipv6 by default at no extra cost, none of this £5 extra per month. I don't know if they still do it but when I ordered it (April) they offered a lower monthly cost if you paid the first year upfront.

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

If you went for 900Mb with an Openreach based provider then the upload is 110Mb not 30 or 40
In areas were Zen are available on both CF and OR , presumably they would offer access to both , if they have the appropriate interconnections etc , in those cases it should be clear which network the service is being offer over , and obviously you should be able to favour one over the other if you wanted to

Not everyone wants to, can afford or needs 900 Mbit

If you look at openreach. It's 30-40 Upto 150Mbps and 50 for 300

So I'm not wrong. 115mbps upload on a 900 service is still slower than mine on Zen.

Edited by wiggsc00 (Tue 07-Nov-23 22:34:08)

Post deleted by Iniltous

Edited by Iniltous (Wed 08-Nov-23 07:56:23)

You didn’t qualify your statement in any way , your post never linked what you claimed is BT upload speed to a particular download speed profile , you simply stated ( inaccurately) that BT was limited to 30 or 40Mb which is wrong

In reply to a post by Iniltous:

You didn’t qualify your statement in any way , your post never linked what you claimed is BT upload speed to a particular download speed profile , you simply stated ( inaccurately) that BT was limited to 30 or 40Mb which is wrong

I didn't 'claim' anything, nor did I state inaccurate information. The facts are clear. Openreach is asymmetric, cityfibre is not. Unless you have deep pockets for 900mbit Openreach, you are limited to around 40Mbit upload. Which is true and not wrong.

I honestly can't see who would benefit from 500 upload speeds. 40 is double what I have at present (19) and I hear no complaints from the child on the gaming PC upstairs!

As it stands I will be £3.58 better off with Zen 500/70 or IDNet 550/550 £9.58 better off and both offer top rate service. And using A&A voice is a no brainer.

for info BT complete Wifi is £54.49 a month 900/110 for a current customer.

In reply to a post by blfamily:

I honestly can't see who would benefit from 500 upload speeds. 40 is double what I have at present (19) and I hear no complaints from the child on the gaming PC upstairs!

As it stands I will be £3.58 better off with Zen 500/70 or IDNet 550/550 £9.58 better off and both offer top rate service. And using A&A voice is a no brainer.

for info BT complete Wifi is £54.49 a month 900/110 for a current customer.

Absolutely spot on. If you work from home and transfer large data packets to and from your workplace network then the benefits of upstream speeds are greater. I've not experienced BT fibre but it is expensive. In your shoes I would go with IDNET. It was a toss up between them and Zen for me. Both have static ipv4 &6 and being in the game longer are unlikely to use CGNAT anytime soon. Zen was cheaper for 300Mb. I switched from Giganet who were also superb and cityfibre was very reliable but pricing was not keen after 12 months. You can always switch to Zen when they offer cityfibre later on, which they likely will.
Good luck!

Your statement never tied any download speed to the upload speed of 30/40 Mb you stated , in my opinion to give a false impression that 40Mb is the limit , when in reality its the upload limit on lower speed packages .
You presumably have a 300Mb service with CF , great , may you have a long and happy relationship with them , but the comparable service with BT is 500Mb not 300Mb ,and the upload on that is 75Mb not 30 or 40Mb, is BT 500 Mb more expensive than providers on CF , probably , that isn’t the point in question.
Strange that you emphasise symmetric upload speed as a positive , then state it’s not of much benefit unless have a need for it , something that most domestic users don’t have

Edited by Iniltous (Wed 08-Nov-23 10:15:57)

Seriously spend your energy and time contributing something positive

Much like yourself you mean ?
My contribution, which wasn’t provocative, but seems to have inflamed you somewhat, I was countering the somewhat misleading impression you gave about upload speeds available on BT , in your original contribution you could have stated higher upload speeds were available, but you chose not to , you posted this ,

BT is not symmetrical so upload will be limited to 30 or 40 Mbps

BT is not limited to 30 or 40Mb upload , ergo it’s an incorrect statement

Edited by Iniltous (Wed 08-Nov-23 10:40:26)

Post deleted by wiggsc00

AFAIK Zen will connect to all City Fibre (CF) as soon as they can, this can take quite some time as the relay in CF laying fibre between the CF Fibre Exchange (FEX) to Zen's local exchange (Usually a BT Exchange).

For me City Fibre is available with other providers but not Zen yet.
Netomnia (NO) is also are available for me.
BT Openreach built to me after CF and NO did, Their original date for me was 2027 or something, funny it happen just after CF and NO built out

Zen are offering me service via BTOR.

Zen have told me they are still going to build out CF even though BTOR is available so I am waiting.

If / when Zen do start supplying your area on Cityfibre, I can recommend them. I'm on their 500Mbps service and I get ~900 up as do several other people I work with do.

Given that I'm uploading 20GB to 100GB packages regularly and my wife is constantly on videos calls all day, it's great

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/16995562765...

Edited by fredfox (Thu 09-Nov-23 19:04:55)

In reply to a post by RichTea23:

...
Zen are offering me service via BTOR.

Zen have told me they are still going to build out CF even though BTOR is available so I am waiting.

I wouldn't hold your breath, it's been 6 months since Cityfibre became available here and no sign of Zen yet. If you're set on Zen you might want to consider the shortest contract you can with another provider and hope Zen are available when that contract ends

In reply to a post by Garet:

I wouldn't hold your breath, it's been 6 months since Cityfibre became available here and no sign of Zen yet. If you're set on Zen you might want to consider the shortest contract you can with another provider and hope Zen are available when that contract ends

I have been considering You (Fibre) via Netomnia as a second connection, they do offer "No Contract" and I quite fancy the idea of two connections.
Its been a while since CF was available to me too but all other ISP's via CF are ether very expensive, only offer CGNat / Dynamic IP's or are known to be unreliable. I Work from home and use VPN's my current 30Mb is slow but reliable.


On a side note You are now offering 8G for £99! madness I worked in Telecoms a "few" years ago and you would not believe the prices we charged for an E4 (45Mb) or an STM1 (155Mb)

Thanks Garet

I went with IDNet on their 500/500 tier - it is cheaper by a quid than Zen's 300, not much I know, the connection is 7 times faster than what I have at the moment for less money.
I did consider Zen 300/47 and 100/18, the latter rejected as minimum speed guarantee is less than FTTC minimum with BT.
Benefits - the static IP4/6 and CF have a quicker repair window than OR. And a new wifi6 router.

I have been with Zen (500mbps) FTTP via Openreach £45p/m since the start of the year, with no phone provision, after BT wanted to rip me off for GFast & then FTTP. I frequently get more than the stated service level and some times by a considerable amount. CityFibre wired up my street some while ago, but as yet my area hasn't gone live. When my 24mth contract comes up for renewal I will definitely look to see if it would be beneficial to switch to CityFibre, but have no hesitation in recommending Zen. My only surprise in switching to Zen was that you have to request IPV6, rather than IPV4!