FTTC from Zen

Hey All,

Just a few questions, and before I ask them, I love Zen to bits - but I think it's time to review my ISP after several years.

So with that in mind, I am one such customer eagerly awaiting the FTTC for my area to go live (March '11), however, now I see that Zen are switching to a 12 month contract for FTTC. So firstly is this for new customers or existing or both?

If existing customers or both, my main draw for Zen was that I could leave if things went wrong or the service was degraded for whatever reason, but that hasn't happened. So I've stayed, even though admittedly it's not the best value for money.

So seeing as Fibre is coming along, I am contemplating trying out another ISP - another small niche ISP - but before I do - just want to be sure what it is exactly I am paying for?

UK Support? - Nice to have
Email - Unused
Newsgroups - No longer offered?

Am I missing anything?

Oh - and is the £75 Activation Charge applicable for regrades to the new service?

Thx for any replies.

Phil.

The 12 Month contract is for both new and existing customers moving to FTTC.
Unfortunately BT Wholesale's minimum contract for the wholesale FTTC products is 12 months, so you wont find any ISP offering less than 12 month contracts for it. You are allowed to swap to a different FTTC product within the 12 month period though.

The £75+VAT charge applies both whether you are activating a new line, or swapping an existing ADSL line (this covers the cost of the BT engineer who needs to come out and install a new socket + the BT FTTC modem)

Its worth of course pointing out that as well as the UK support (by people who know what they are talking about) and other benefits there is also no traffic shaping/throttling applied on any Zen connection. Whether these things are worth it to you is a decision only you can make

OK - that clarifies things for me then - staying with Zen, since I know what I am getting and I doubt there is anywhere that can offer better support

Thanks James.

I have FTTC with Zen and it's awesome!

One question though - where do you stand with a 'move' order within the 12 month term ?

I'm just getting clarification from the Product Manager. Will let you know...

Hi, I've had a word with the Product manager now.

At present we don't have a proper house move service for Fibre broadband products. A move process is being worked on, but its very early stages, so I cant tell you any timescale or details of what the final process will be.

The Official line therefore presently is that moving house requires you to cancel the service at the old premises, and therefore pay for the remainder of the 12 month contract (as per the T & Cs). However if you do find yourself in the position of moving house within 12 months of the start of an FTTC contract I'd always say give us a ring, and see if we can help make the move of your broadband any easier.

Hope that answers your question.

Thanks for that - what it tells me at the moment is there is no point in even trying to get on FTTC before I move.

What happens after the 12 month term - I presume it becomes a 1 month service like ADSL of old?

I had the BT version of FTTC and it was very poor in the evenings (more the backend network to be honest). In the end they couldn't give me the service I wanted and I managed to get a free exit from the contract.

I moved the connection to ZEN and the service has been rock solid. There is no change on the connectivity from the cabinet to my home, but I'm not using a Home Hub2 or BT's Internet pipes anymore. Very happy so far...