Well, since moving to sky my speeds during peak times are around 4mb which is 2mb more than zen and bear in mind this is only the second day and I'm in the early stages of the training period.

This is what I think has happened ... ZEN appoints a new flashy new manager to increase profits, so the first thing he does is cut back costs to BT which he knows will cause low speeds to zen customers during peak times and they can consequently blame BT when the complaints come in.

Whatever is happening, I will say this - it take years to build a reputation and an instant to lose it.

Have you tried the TBB BQM. It might shed some light on things. Also suggest you try downloading some speedtest files, rather than 'site' files, so as to avoid site throttling.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Have you tried the TBB BQM. It might shed some light on things. Also suggest you try downloading some speedtest files, rather than 'site' files, so as to avoid site throttling.

I did download speedtest files, i used my website providers files at Inmotion Hosting and was able to determine speed of the download doing that, their peak times will be different to UK times and i think that helps even more with diagnostics.

At the moment, I no longer seem to be suffering the extremely slow speeds that I was getting on occasion (2Mb and below). The slow times for me are still late in the evenings, but it's usually 4Mb-5Mb when I've checked, so still slowing, but not nearly as much.

Trouble is there are many peaks on the Zen connection. During business hours when Zens network is under pressure from Business users typically during the day. Then local exchange contention typically early and late evening when local users are online and you have to compete with all ISPs for bandwidth.

OK - after a couple of weeks of monitoring, including trying a couple of other routers to exclude the possibility of hardware fault at my end, the issue appear to have been sorted. It pointed out to BT equipment in the exchange, although this hasn't been confirmed by BT.
Zen guys have contacted BT about this, apparently BT hasn't bother to reply. But as all appears OK now I am happy to close this. It is very probable that BT upgraded some of their gear at the exchange.
In principle I have no problems moving away from Zen if the service I receive from them doesn't satisfy my needs. Whatever the reason... Blaming it on BT will not help in certain cases - at least now we start to have other options. It is up to the ISPs to push BT and liase with OFCOM to ensure our services are as flawless as possible.
But, as always, the Zen help desk is extremely professional and helpful. I wish more services we have to deal with from day to day were as professional and with as much common sense. I see no reason to move.
Thank you Zen.

In reply to a post by MiGLancer:

It is up to the ISPs to push BT and liase with OFCOM to ensure our services are as flawless as possible.

You forget that we have no 'right' to have xDSL and we must accept the service 'as is' Remember the minimum data service obligation is only still 56kbit* so far as BT's required to support (On dial up) and I think its 128 or 160kbit* over ADSL. It's a bit like the DACS problem - nothing says BT have to remove one in order to provide you xDSL service.

What Ofcom need to do is start again with it all really and *force* BT to deliver minimum service standards. (Oh wait don't we have a USO of 2mbit coming in 2014 anyway ?!)

There are 2 issues to address - BT have to get there act together but at the same time must not be allowed to price people out of the market. (Note the price of BT's BES and MSiL's, and an old 622Mbit ATM central was £1.5M/pa*)

Otherwise remove BT's control over the system (DLM, RAMBO, BBRAS etc) and hand it over to the ISP's on a port by port bases leaving BT to only provide the physical hardware platforms (MSANS, Nodes etc) At the same time force the network up to standard (Which is partly going on now with the 7750 upgrade program and the MGLAG program)

It will be interesting to see what happens when Fuji (I think it was) starts to build out its access, distribution and core networks in the UK over the coming year or so.

There's lots of other issues which I can't be bothered going into, like corperation tax on dark fibre and so on which don't help smaller operators. Spetrum issues with wireless providers, and planning issues with sewer based providers.

BT based ISP's need to wake up and smell the coffee and realise nothing is going to change over night, and its going to take *years* to bring new ideas etc online. Those providers who are not looking to there own LLU deployments, or using a 3rd party wholesale access provider will only get dragged down no matter how good a company they are in there own right. Customers want choice, where they don't get it or there are many layers of blame they are not interested and will vote with there money and go elsewhere (Even if they still experience the same problems in the 1st instance)


* From what I remeber.

Thanks for pointing this out - I did not forget however, maybe didn't implied it enough.

Yes, I think someone - and ISPs are the main engine behind this and maybe consumer groups - need to lobby OFCOM to impose a minimum of services that need to be made available for a modern comm network. Customers expect this regardless of what the imposed requirement is.

There is a lot in your post I don't understand as I am not a specialist, but you are right ISPs need to wake up and get their act together pronto. And OFCOM needs to grow some cojones in front of BT or any other comm company.

And consumers need to understand the word contention and what it actually means.

The internet simply cannot have an uncontended pipe into each home. Something has to be shared somewhere and that means speeds will slow down at peak times. Everyone wants guarantees but not to pay for them. You have a guarantee and its sub 256kbit and thats what you pay for.

People seem to think an ISP can guarantee many things but so much traffic goes into the cloud it simply is not possible. All they can guarantee is the speed to the exchange as past that point your line speed really does depend upon everyone else who (selfishly) expects their speeds to be met at the expense of others.

Your car can probably do 155mph before its speed limited and even if the speed limit were removed, you still would never manage that speed due to the other traffic on the road. Your suggestion would be the equivalent of keeping building roads so that you can go faster, which are dedicated to your personal usage, and then expecting everyone else to get out of your way.

Won't happen - live with it

I think most understand the contention issue. That doesn't mean we should accept a lower quality because of that.

At least in UK, most ISP have their balls in BT's clutch. BT is not bothered by any of these issues as they only have to provide a minimum. And they are also a competing ISP.

So ISP's - for their own good - should push BT and especially OFCOM to ensure progress is made. Either in upgrade of hardware or technologies. Speed up taking over the loop! Increasing the optic fibre coverage is building the new roads you are talking about. I do not accept your defeatist attitude. If there were scientific issues against it I would understand. But there is no reason for UK not to achieve internet speeds similar to those in S Korea. I am being overoptimistic, I know, but in principle it could happen. You seem to spin my idea a bit and insinuate I expect a personal usage line or similar - this is not what I expect, but a reasonably quick upgrade of hardware, fibre, local loop or whatever it takes. If not from BT then from a competitor.

In my area there is no significant increase of users - I live in the sticks. But the users expectations and usage has increase - see BT's own BT Vision, iPlayer, 4OD, LoveFilm etc...

One way or another I will move to the provider that gives me the smoothest access. Excuses like contention should mean nothing to the consumer. Within reason, of course.

Edited by deleted (Sat 18-Jun-11 23:18:36)