Zen Speeds

We're currently suffering some very poor speeds on two of our Zen connections and serveral of our customers. Several speed tests show around 0.5meg downloads on a 4.0meg connection. (and yes, I've troubleshooted).

Whilst I appreciate to a certain extent the 'Summer Period' (http://status.zensupport.co.uk/index.php?serviceid=5&incidentid=1855&simple=1) this isn't something I'd expect from Zen, especially when we're paying for 'Traffic Prioritisation or Elevated Rate'. Clearly this goes out of the window if it's BBQ season.

Despite having attending the Zen ADSL troubleshooting course, On-Line technical support just fobbed me off with 'Check your wireless, check for viruses..blah blah'. I've been on the course, we're a platinum partner, we know what we're doing, we know what to check before contacting Zen.

Is this something that we should expect from Zen during every sporting event? What happens when Wimbledon starts? Should we expect speeds to drop further?

Luckily speeds within Zen seem stable so supporting our customers hasn't been effected, but it's hard fobbing off a customer about issues at Zen for a product we recommended.

Also, why is it getting harder and harder to contact technical support? I've spent over 30 minutes on hold on two occasions recently. Are the calls related to the same issues? If so, why doesn't techsupport admit that there's speed issues in Zen's core network?

Edited by rogermwl (Mon 21-Jun-10 15:00:22)

I'm suffering too. Downloads are poor, streaming video impossible (synced at 22mb) first hop pings up to 140ms from 10ms all the time. I'm now connecting to the Manchester gateway not Leeds - have you noticed anything similar?

I called tech support, they asked me to do a bt speedtest and enable ping on my router for logging. Just tried calling again to get the speedtest 'service ID' and gave up waiting on hold. What's going on?

Try using http://fuller.zen.co.uk/test/ and compare it to something like http://www.btopenworld.com/speedtest . Speeds with the Zen tests are fine, leave Zen's network and it just crawls.

Edited by rogermwl (Mon 21-Jun-10 15:16:49)

Since the 21CN switch my fuller speedtests have never reached half my sync speed so I don't trust it any more. I'm currently downloading at 30KB/s from fuller

same here. Very slow speeds today and I'm not on the 21CN network. I thought it was my router, I restarted it and its still downloading from zen fuller @ 53KBs. its normally 600KBs. My sync is @ 6.4Mbs.

Over the last week or so I have also been experiencing slower speeds. I always sync at 3360kb/s but have seen actual download speeds of 60kB/s (from usual 260-280kB/s) quite often.
http://i49.tinypic.com/qppjzn.jpg

fuller.zen gives me 60-80 kB/s at the moment and browsing the net just seems incredibly slow.

World Cup, Wimbledon. It's being experienced on a lot of ISPs.

My 8Mb connection is crawling at about 1Mb now! Both my speed test and Zen test download.

Should I register this as a complaint, it's [censored] awful!

I might expect it from some ISPs, but not from Zen, and not with supposed prioritisation.

I don't want to see traffic shaping. Maybe Zen should consider upgrading their infrastucture, after all, we do tend to pay more than 'alot of ISPs'.

From about 11 June everyday at about noon my two adsl2+ lines drop from about 7.5Mbs to 750kps and network latency from 25ms->130ms
Have spoken to Zen support and they are suggesting it is local electrical interference.