These not the questions i am considering,
As a customer i am asking
1. Any I happy wth the service
2. Do I need anything else
3. Is the cost right, am I feeling ripped off

If you want bargain basement, go with BT.
If you want quality, go with Zen.

There's an unlimited calls package (01/02/03/0845/0870) for £6.61 per month (inc VAT) on these tariffs - details are here.

So, the total monthly spend for Zen Unlimited Fibre 2 with unlimited calls is is:

£30 - Unlimited Fibre 2
£15.45 - line rental
£6.61 - unlimited calls

for a total of £52.06 including VAT.


Calling features are charged at the rates given here. The key one that will interest most people is Caller Display, which is 90p (including VAT) per month.

I didn't think that I was posing a question. All I am suggesting is that you have got your sums wrong. The present (old) £17 package is line rental plus calls. The new 80/20 Fibre Unlimited and phone package is £30 for the internet plus and £15.44 line rental. You cannot mix and match bits of the old and new packages If you want Unlimited (capped) 01.02.03.0845 and 0870 calls then add £6.61 per month. Why not ring Zen sales and get them to do the calculation. You might then let other posters know the result.

I'm sure your analysis is correct lexden16, though, as you say, Zen Sales will be able to confirm it.


Zen have clearly gone for BT Retail like voice pricing with their new packages.

Zen's line rental is the same as BT Retail at £15.45 per month. BT Retail gives the option to pay 12 months in advance at £141 (equivalent to £11.75 per month), Zen does not. If you have multiple lines on one account, BT only allows you to pay in advance for one line.

Unlimited calls is £6.61 on Zen as opposed to £7 with BT Retail. With the BT Retail version, you pay one unlimited call fee for all lines on the same account - I'm not clear whether the Zen version is per line or per account. This is significant for us as we have two lines, both of which we still need.

Caller display on Zen is 90p per month. It is inclusive on BT Retail if you meet the (minimal) conditions for Privacy at Home.

Call diversion on Zen is £2.40 per month, and includes call waiting. On BT Retail, call diversion costs £3.30 per month.


Zen will cost us more for our setup - two lines, both with caller display and unlimited calls, one with call diversion costs:

BT Retail
£11.75 rental for one line (year in advance)
£15.45 rental for the second line
£7 unlimited calls (one payment for both lines)
nil for caller display (Privacy at Home)
£3.30 call diversion (one line only)

£37.50 total for voice


Zen
£15.45 x 2 line rental
£6.61 x 2 unlimited calls (I think it's x 2)
£0.90 x 2 caller display
£2.40 call diversion (includes call waiting)

£48.32 total for voice


Understandably, I'd rather not pay an extra £10.82 per month for phone services! I'd save some of this by leaving the second line with BT Retail, though I'd probably struggle to split one line away from the current BT Retail account. VoIP would be an option for the second line, but hanging on to the existing number is crucial.

Unfortunately, combined broadband and voice packages seem to be the way ahead.

In reply to a post by AndyPandy:

It's a kick in the teeth to see faster, cheaper, unlimited products that aren't available to me, from the very ISP that I'm with.

I'm about a hair's breadth from asking for my MAC code. Where is the upside for the loyal customers stuck on slower products Zen?

Zen are using their new MPLS network for much of their FTTx backhaul. The only Zen FTTx customers that remain on WBMC are those, like me, who are on an exchange not (yet) served by the MPLS network. This saves Zen a small fortune in BT Wholesale bandwidth costs.


Zen can't use their new MPLS network for ADSL2+ backhaul, as there's no BT Openreach wholesale ADSL2+ product for them to connect to at exchange level. There are five options for ADSL2+, and it is quite possible to use a different option for each exchange:

* use BT Wholesale WBMC and pay BT Wholesale to haul the data to you (Zen's current option)
* use BT Wholesale WBC and haul the data yourself from the 21CN aggregation points (which would involve Zen in building a new network for ADSL2+ only)
* use WBC and pay someone else for hauling the data from the 21CN aggregation points to you (does anyone offer this service wholesale?)
* install your own LLU ADSL2+ service
* use someone else's LLU ADSL2+ wholesale service


The economics for new investment in ADSL2+ are unlikely to be favourable. The margins on ADSL2+ products are slender and many customers are moving to FTTx as it becomes available.

Zen tried installing LLU ADSL2+ a few years ago and gave up after a few exchanges - I expect there was insufficient return on investment to be worth continuing. They could use the MPLS network to connect to LLU ADSL2+ equipment, but there seems to be no return on investment installing such a setup for the limited number of customers on FTTx served exchanges who are unable or unwilling to take an FTTx product.


There are wholesale ADSL2+ LLU offerings in the marketplace, and there may be a wholesale ADSL2+ WBC offering. So far, Zen has not gone down the route of using alternative ADSL2+ wholesale suppliers to BT Wholesale, and I see no reason to suggest they will do so now. If you want such a service, you'll have to look elsewhere, though it's worth remembering that the future of the Be/O2 wholesale ADSL2+ platform is somewhat unclear at present. The Be/O2 retail customers have been bought by Sky, but I'm not aware of any announcement about the wholesale network.

In reply to a post by stuorguk:

Zen, if your reading this, add IPV6 support, and I will switch my account over to you.

Zen keep saying they're working towards offering IPv6, but see no reason to hurry to do so. However, the lack of IPv6 is becoming an increasingly glaring omission from an otherwise excellent offering.

The demand for IPv6 must be growing steadily, and the barriers receding. Now that pfSense 2.1 has been released, I'm ready for native IPv6. For now, I'm having to use a SixXS tunnel, with the extra overheads that entails (7ms extra latency and 20 bytes per packet for the protocol 41 6in4 encapsulation).

Hopefully Zen will start offering customers a native IPv6 /48 soon, allowing me to get rid of SixXS.

If you work in IT as I do, and manage any webservices that support IPV6 for clients, then you need IPV6.

Seems crazy Zen go after the premium & business end of the ISP market, and yet no IPV6!!

And it's not like IPV6 is rare. I have a plugin in my chrome browser, that shows me what sites are IPV6 enabled, and lots of them are now.

Agreed I have IPv6 and it is a must have for developers who want to check that everything works fine.

Thanks for the detailed response. I understand that there may be economic reasons underpinning the pricing, however this does little to address the gaps between the have's, and have not's, in terms of fibre deployment.

To be charging more, for a slower service, which is capped, is quite frankly a very poor commercial decision, especially in light of the competition's offerings.

I have Sky LLU at my exchange, so could get this very cheaply as I already have their TV service, however I'm don't sure I want their customer service - which really does influence my decision.

Plusnet, however, I've been with before and was happy with. They can give me everything that I want, that I can't get from Zen, and at a cheaper price.

Your ultimate point is correct; there comes a point when you have to vote with your feet unfortunately.

It's sad that Zen, who I've always had the utmost respect for as an ISP, seem to be going down the path of so many other (much worse) ISPs: Only give the customer what they want, when the bottom line starts to be impacted.

I'll just leave this here, and wait a couple of days to see if someone from Zen has something up their sleeve that has yet to be announced.

If not, I'll be getting my MAC code and heading to Plusnet. I'll hopefully see fibre here next year, so I can always come back if Plusnet isn't great.