I contacted support via email this morning and I'm going to ring them tomorrow morning as nothing has improved for the past 5 days.

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [151.101.0.81]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms testwifi.here [192.168.86.1]
2 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms lo1.subs.bng1.wh-man.zen.net.uk [62.3.89.162]
3 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms ae5-161.cr2.wh-man.zen.net.uk [62.3.86.13]
4 15 ms 15 ms * vl-50.ph-0-4-3.cor1.manc1.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.58]
5 21 ms 20 ms 20 ms ae-2.pe1.ixn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.34]
6 * 21 ms 20 ms ae-1.br1.ixn-lon.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.121]
7 20 ms * 20 ms 195.66.225.91
8 20 ms 20 ms 20 ms 151.101.0.81

Lots of dropped packets. Pinging hop 4 shows how bad this is:

Pinging 51.148.73.58 with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 51.148.73.58: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=252
Reply from 51.148.73.58: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=252
Reply from 51.148.73.58: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=252
Reply from 51.148.73.58: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=252
Request timed out.
Reply from 51.148.73.58: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=252
Reply from 51.148.73.58: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=252
Reply from 51.148.73.58: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=252
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 51.148.73.58:
Packets: Sent = 10, Received = 7, Lost = 3 (30% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 14ms, Maximum = 14ms, Average = 14ms.

This graph shows just how bad the throughput goes during peak times..... the scale isn't linear as it represents tests, but this is how bad it is...

https://testmy.net/compID/75852670545

Very happy to club together and force Zen to admit problems and sort them out. I'm currently out of contract paying the equivalent of fttp 150 and was going to upgrade to their fttp, but not if they can't solve these problems.

Edited by deleted (Sat 27-Jun-20 21:49:57)

I agree. My problem was initially the same until a router update a couple of days ago. I hope a new router tomorrow may throw some light on my can of worms.

I have had exactly the same issue this evening and it first appeared for me on the 24th June. I had a dm200 Netgear router that I had previously purchased but not used. I ended up trying to take the Fritz box out of the mix completely by swapping that router (DM200) in and since I have done that (in the last 30 minutes) I haven't seen any packet loss where previously I was seeing 30% packet loss. So for me it does seem to be to do with the router in some way that is resulting in the packet loss. Note: I have limited knowledge in the network space so take what I say with a pinch of salt !

Am I right to assume you also had the router firmware update?

Had a chat with Tech Support this morning and have replaced the Draytek with Zen’s Fritz box and removed the BT faceplate so running on the test port. Throughput has improved however the BQM data is dreadful - far far worse than with the Draytek 2860ac ever was. That could be because of no faceplate, or it could be the Fritz not supporting ICMP pings properly, or something else. The change is around 09:30 this morning. At that point throughput was less than 2Mbps. It’s now up to 65Mbpsand the sync is unchanged at 71/20.

My Broadband Ping

I’m expecting to put the Draytek back as the modem later today after Zen call back (it’s in failover mode at present so that the LAN is unaffected) and will see what changes.

Are BT NTE 5c Mk4 faceplates a weak spot?

UPDATE 15:00 28/06/20: Zen Tech Support have just confirmed that they’re seeing an issue of some sort and will be raising a ticket with their supplier. No details however at least something has given enough detail to be able to get this looked into. The impression I have is that this covers ‘users’ plural, rather than just my circuit.

Edited by MercuryRH2 (Sun 28-Jun-20 15:14:01)

I am unfortunately again seeing dropped packets even after the replaced router. I suspect therefore that there is a wider issue with this. I have messaged support so will wait to hear from the but given the conversation thread on here it does seem as though there are multiple users affected.

I have just about lost the will to live now after ordering a USB cable for a brand new unused printer as the Fritz!box brainstorm refuses to send data to my usual printer. I also ordered a VDSL router, both from amazon to arrive today, all of this to take the Fritz!box out of the loop. I have already had a trip to town to return a mini gardening set that was sent instead of the printer cable.
I now have another trip to return the router, which turned out a D.O.A. TP-Link TD-W8960, an ADSL router that was returned in 2014 judging by what the previous buyer wrote on the box!
Hooked up The FRitz!box up again and it now refuses to load 75% of webpages, so now I am hooked up to 4G Mi-Fi touter, one of two I have. It will be interesting to see my BQM now. If the problem is 100% the Zen supplied router as it seems, it will take a replacement router to keep me as a customer.

Edited by professor973 (Sun 28-Jun-20 17:05:19)

Give them a ring tomorrow morning and get added to the list of users with PL and throughput issues.

They should have the capability to test their networks constantly and be pro-active about fixing problems rather than waiting for a threshold of annoyed users to ring in after 5 days of [censored] service.

In reply to a post by neegal:

Give them a ring tomorrow morning and get added to the list of users with PL and throughput issues.

They should have the capability to test their networks constantly and be pro-active about fixing problems rather than waiting for a threshold of annoyed users to ring in after 5 days of [censored] service.

This annoys me - I pay a premium for Zen over the likes of BT/TalkTalk because I expect better support/transparency. There is zero mention of issues on the Broadband status page. Regardless of the forum posts/tweets out there, their network team *must* be aware of these issues especially when it seems to be a congestion issue on the Manchester gateway. From my TB monitor, I can see clearly that the PL/latency is much worse at peak times.

Well I have NEVER had an ISP that ignores my problem unless a certain number of others have the same problem. A year or two back I had a massive underground problem with unducted buried old underground cable. Both Pulse8 and later AAISP when it returned pushed and pushed a reluctant Openreach until finally they dug.
I am suffering the same evening slowdown and hope tonights London upgrade will help that, but other than that, I am very suspicious of the TBB BQM showing 30% loss when my ping monitor shows NO lost packets from any site!
https://ibb.co/6F5CgWK

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/...

Edited by professor973 (Mon 29-Jun-20 00:21:59)