Yes, that's why it's all so confusing. The Apple router actually works fine (within the limitations of what the ancient hardware can do - maxing out around 200Mbits, so better than nothing for now.

Two different Fritz's (and also a firmware update, so almost like 3 different ones), and the Technicolor all the same, and BAD. I do have my suspicions re: NAT shaping, or something like that, but it also disconnects really badly as well.

People rightly moaning about lack of support for nearly a month, but they do seem to have woken up now, so cooperating for now, however my patience isn't infinite, and I don't want to turn into an unpaid UAT tester for Zen (I do software performance testing as a job, and really, testing stuff for fun gets somewhat boring!)

Let's stay positive, and see what the day brings, Hazy Flakes asking me to run some more tests today, which I will do after my usual round of Teams meetings this morning

I hear you. Sometimes however it’s easier to go with the path of least resistance….

If it was me: I’d be using my own capable router, and put the ISP supplied garbage (let’s not mince words) in the cupboard.

If your still not getting te full whack then beat them up over it for sure. Otherwise I’m not sure I could stand being their continued guinea pig whilst they fault find whatever is holding things up with their own CPE.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

If it was me: I’d be using my own capable router, and put the ISP supplied garbage (let’s not mince words) in the cupboard.

I don't think the Fritz is that bad actually, it's worked totally fine for a year, and things only bad after the migration, so it's just not the router! I have a mesh set up, and the router was OK. So, the Apple one for now.....

I agree. At least things seem to be moving now.

I've forwarded my concerns regarding the support situation to them as it just seems like a weird operational misfire to close tickets without trying to at least confirm with the end-user.

And I think the comments that suggest that Zen have unilaterally declared that the issue is fixed aren't exactly fair. They've said it appears to be fixed for the vast majority of users, and we have had confirmation on this thread that it's definitely not a universal issue.

Whilst this information doesn't help me or Steve, I don't think it's fair for us forum users to assume that everyone on Zen is currently suffering either. At the end of the day there's no way we can know who's suffering with this issue unless they post on here, or Zen spill the details (I wouldn't expect them to go further than they already have on ISPReview). All we currently know is that it's me and Steve. We can guess that other Zen FTTP customers on our respective exchanges may also be having the issue, but this is just a guess.

The ISP supplied router is usually the first thing I replace but the fritzbox they supply is actually decent and I've been happily using it since I joined Zen. My only complaint is that it isn't WiFi 6 capable, so the usable bandwidth via WiFi tops out at around 500ish Mbps.

Perhaps I should ask for a free upgrade when they bring out a newer replacement 😉

In my case the speed is still low no matter what's connected to the ONT so I'm not blaming the fritzbox at all. It's not missed a beat until this migration so it's clearly capable and not at fault.

I even use the built in DECT base station with Sipgate and a gigaset handset so that I have a free local phone number, just in case I ever need it. It seems to work perfectly and was easy to set up. Not many routers i know of can do this, though I guess it's probably going to get more common with the move towards digital voice services as standard.

I only have the 500Mb package at the moment, so the WiFi limit isn't an issue, but I do have mesh repeaters, so get good speeds all over the house and garden. And in any case, I really avoid Wifi as it's not good enough for work, it's ok on the phone / tablet, and when people come to stay

Certainly differences with PPOE between us it seems, so maybe there is hope of a fix, if not a common one.

I use the same setup of dect / sipgate as you, yes, it's a handy alternative to the mobile, I put £20 of credit on Sipgate, and have barely used a few pence in the last year.

Just running Brandons PPPOE tests, but all looks fine, will publish results on here when complete.... Here they are !

Time of completion
Download speed
Upload Speed
Loaded latency
Unloaded Latency
Notes
10:16:39
510
59
294
10
All test to speedtest.net with default settings
10:18:17
510
69
263
11

10:22:01
520
65
286
10

10:27:07
600
66
228
10

10:30:36
570
67
241
11

10:32:42
620
64
213
11

10:34:47
600
68
224
10

10:37:15
610
67
176
10

10:39:32
660
63
163
10

10:45:25
560
67
156
10

10:47:07
560
70
174
10

10:50:14
230
69
23
11
Apple router

In reply to a post by FakeJake:

I think the comments that suggest that Zen have unilaterally declared that the issue is fixed aren't exactly fair. They've said it appears to be fixed for the vast majority of users, and we have had confirmation on this thread that it's definitely not a universal issue.

Whilst this information doesn't help me or Steve, I don't think it's fair for us forum users to assume that everyone on Zen is currently suffering either. At the end of the day there's no way we can know who's suffering with this issue unless they post on here, or Zen spill the details (I wouldn't expect them to go further than they already have on ISPReview). All we currently know is that it's me and Steve. We can guess that other Zen FTTP customers on our respective exchanges may also be having the issue, but this is just a guess.

Some people have a short memory about the lack of progress over the last month but thats fine, really happy for Steve as he has been the person that kept this thread going during that time and his possibly one of the main reasons (+ Mark at ISPReview) why the recent push from Zen to resolve the issue. All the best guys.

Steve gets full speed when connected directly to the ONT, so his issue artists to be something different. He may have kept the thread alive but his issue looks like it has little to do with the thread.

If you get full speed connected to the ONT, to me that means it's the router, or the cable between the ONT and the router.
A change of GEA backhaul shouldn't make any difference to how an individual router performs.

I've no idea how Zen can proceed with such a fault having already sent a 2nd Fritzbox.

In reply to a post by dect:

Seems like everyone is happy then, Zen suddenly announce at midday today on ISPReview that the issue is resolved, Steve has still got an issue and so have you (your ticket was conveniently closed) and both of you participated in the on site testing so should have been used to test and confirm the fix. All swept under the carpet today after a high level meeting at Zen, just perfect.

ISP Review journalist needs to actually investigate instead of taking ISP statements as gospel? That dude still thinks Leicester has coverage by 3 FTTP providers lol.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

I've no idea how Zen can proceed with such a fault having already sent a 2nd Fritzbox.

AND a different router tested as well (Technicolor, also known good, and supplied by Zen), as well as Zen observing speed reducing from 500 to about 8 Mbps on their own test runs runs a few weeks ago... Of course it's not THAT simple! J0hn !

(Below results of Zen's runs, connected directly to the ONT using PPPOE, but with an intermediate run testing UDP latency when they visited, all tests only minutes apart)

brandon@PerfSonarColo:/home/engineer# iperf3 -c 82.68.31.104 -Z
Connecting to host 82.68.31.104, port 5201
[ 5] local 51.148.36.227 port 44992 connected to 82.68.31.104 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr Cwnd
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 75.8 MBytes 636 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 60.0 MBytes 503 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 61.2 MBytes 514 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 61.2 MBytes 514 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 60.0 MBytes 503 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 61.2 MBytes 514 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 60.0 MBytes 503 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 61.2 MBytes 514 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 61.2 MBytes 514 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 60.0 MBytes 503 Mbits/sec 0 32.0 MBytes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 622 MBytes 522 Mbits/sec 0 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.26 sec 617 MBytes 504 Mbits/sec receiver
iperf Done.


But when we reran the same test a short while later the throughput dropped to ~ 8Mbps;

brandon@PerfSonarColo:/home/engineer# iperf3 -c 82.68.31.104 -Z
Connecting to host 82.68.31.104, port 5201
[ 5] local 51.148.36.227 port 45020 connected to 82.68.31.104 port 5201
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr Cwnd
[ 5] 0.00-1.00 sec 1.89 MBytes 15.8 Mbits/sec 5 19.7 KBytes
[ 5] 1.00-2.00 sec 949 KBytes 7.78 Mbits/sec 7 11.2 KBytes
[ 5] 2.00-3.00 sec 1.30 MBytes 10.9 Mbits/sec 0 33.8 KBytes
[ 5] 3.00-4.00 sec 949 KBytes 7.78 Mbits/sec 5 7.03 KBytes
[ 5] 4.00-5.00 sec 570 KBytes 4.67 Mbits/sec 6 8.44 KBytes
[ 5] 5.00-6.00 sec 570 KBytes 4.67 Mbits/sec 5 14.1 KBytes
[ 5] 6.00-7.00 sec 759 KBytes 6.22 Mbits/sec 3 21.1 KBytes
[ 5] 7.00-8.00 sec 1.11 MBytes 9.33 Mbits/sec 3 23.9 KBytes
[ 5] 8.00-9.00 sec 949 KBytes 7.78 Mbits/sec 5 19.7 KBytes
[ 5] 9.00-10.00 sec 1.48 MBytes 12.4 Mbits/sec 1 35.2 KBytes
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[ ID] Interval Transfer Bitrate Retr
[ 5] 0.00-10.00 sec 10.4 MBytes 8.74 Mbits/sec 40 sender
[ 5] 0.00-10.02 sec 10.0 MBytes 8.39 Mbits/sec receiver

My previous post shows what happens when I retest over a 30 minute period, and it is consistently good (as far as PPPOE into ONT is concerned), but obviously different to what Zen see !!!

The problem is complex! Why the sudden drop? and NOT simply a router change will fix it (so it seems), perhaps NAT related, perhaps UDP, none of us know, but quite simply, NOT that simple! Sorry!

Oh, and by pure coincidence,,,, Everything was stable and working for a year..... and 'Magically' all went wrong (and STAYED wrong) from the exact same night that GEA migration occurred..... Coincidence??? I rather think NOT!

Edited by SteveBushell999 (Fri 29-Apr-22 23:31:26)