What you say makes sense.

Unfortunately it probably amounts to the same thing either way- a waiting game with an unknown end! If it's a commercial decision on when they take up the WSSCO exchange, Zen are unlikely to inform the peasants-- err, tell me that! Similarly, if it's some other nebulous semi-'exclusive' deal on CityFibre's end, they're also unlikely to reveal when that ends.

I'll wait and see what further, if anything, I hear from CF ± Zen and make a decision thereafter. I've been playing the "just one more month" for the past *cough* months, so waiting a little longer to choose between jumping to Giganet or Zen+OR won't kill me.

The calendar has advanced a couple of months but unfortunately the information has not. @RichTea23 mentioned in their thread that they had gotten some info about an interconnect, so if I can somehow cajole Zen into revealing their plans to me then fab, but I have my doubts.

As I mentioned in the other thread I'm at the point of ordering Giganet and seeing if I can get IPv6 connectivity there. It's not officially available according to the salesperson I spoke to, but some users of another forum have reported some qualified successes in getting connectivity. I won't link it here as I'm not sure of the ettiquette, but for me it's the top search result for "giganet ipv6" and it rhymes with 'eye ess pee miscue'.

I keep badgering Zen about CityFibre availability and either I get 'don't know' or they give me a fictitious date which never happens, the latest was 'late July'. To add insult to injury https://www.zen.co.uk/cityfibre/ still says installation to all homes across the CityFibre footprint by late 2022 despite my pointing this out to them a number of times. I wish Zen would be more open about their plans.

In reply to a post by bertieb2:

The calendar has advanced a couple of months but unfortunately the information has not. @RichTea23 mentioned in their thread that they had gotten some info about an interconnect, so if I can somehow cajole Zen into revealing their plans to me then fab, but I have my doubts.

As I mentioned in the other thread I'm at the point of ordering Giganet and seeing if I can get IPv6 connectivity there. It's not officially available according to the salesperson I spoke to, but some users of another forum have reported some qualified successes in getting connectivity. I won't link it here as I'm not sure of the ettiquette, but for me it's the top search result for "giganet ipv6" and it rhymes with 'eye ess pee miscue'.

Update here after some more calendar advancement for others in a similar boat.

I read somewhere back in August that the plans for Zen's CityFibre FEX (fibre exchange) were in the "2-3 month" range. I overcame my own inertia as I could see myself waiting that period and still being on FTTC with Zen -- 40-something quid a month for 70 Mbps -- due to further delays.

I hopped over to Giganet as they were the best of the rest- decent speed at a reasonable price. I do indeed have IPv6, and the supplied eero router is not bad; though it requires installing an app and handing over personal data just to manage (grump, grump). I had to request a static IP for an extra £3/mo to avoid CGNAT, however. I'll see if I get the promised '3 months free' from around May/June. Giganet's customer portal still says I have no orders with them, I asked support about it months ago and they said words to the effect that they were "developing a new system", shrug.

I double checked today and there are now 14 providers for my postcode:

- Vodafone
- Brawband
- TalkTalk
- No One (new)
- Octaplus (new)
- Giganet
- Gigabit Networks (new)
- Brillband
- Yayzi (new- speeds from 900mb up to 2.3Gb)
- Factco (new)
- Idnet (new)
- Fibrehop (new)
- A&A (new; the legends themselves!)
- Link (new)

And yet still no Zen!! Interestingly Yayzi seems to be offering some higher speeds, but in my area only 2Gb asymmetric (2 down, 1 up) is available, not the full 2.3 symmetric they advertise.

Even though I'm on a no-exit-fee 1 month contract I have no real desire to switch away from Giganet. If I did, I'd probably go with A&A, who I took up as a VOIP provider. My plan had been to switch back to Zen-on-CF as soon as that became available, but the longer time passes the less inclined I am to do so.

A&A are expensive. I moved from Giganet to Zen funnily enough, seamless switchover took about 10 minutes on Cityfibre fttp line.

Looking at your list, I would pick IDNET as a suitable ISP. and they're fairly competitive on price, I almost went with them instead of Zen.

In reply to a post by wiggsc00:

A&A are expensive. I moved from Giganet to Zen funnily enough, seamless switchover took about 10 minutes on Cityfibre fttp line.

Looking at your list, I would pick IDNET as a suitable ISP. and they're fairly competitive on price, I almost went with them instead of Zen.

Yup, you're right they are rather expensive, which is what has put me off them in the past. But they seem to be the only ISP to commit to actually being a techy ISP for techy people, like T1 helpdesk people who know how to diagnose problems rather than the usual script-reading stereotype- both have their place, but having the former is such a boon when it's needed (I imagine, judging by what people who have used their tech support have said).

Mini-rant but it seems now that it's cool to be geeky ISPs are rushing to brand themselves thus; then going, "okay here's your CGNAT 'internet' '''connection'''† and a black-box router you can't configure beyond maybe setting the SSID". And don't get me started on the shift to calling an internet connection "the Wifi"...

Back on-topic, cheers for the IDNET rec, they look similarly priced to Giganet except it looks like the static v4 is priced in. And they prominently mention IPv6 support which earns them brownie points in my book. Hopefully whatever caused you to move away from Giganet won't happen to me though... 😅

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†: if I was Benevolent Dictator For Life, ISPs who didn't support IPv6 and imposed CGNAT wouldn't be able to call their offering an 'internet connection' under truthful advertising guidelines!

In reply to a post by bertieb2:

Mini-rant but it seems now that it's cool to be geeky ISPs are rushing to brand themselves thus; then going, "okay here's your CGNAT 'internet' '''connection'''† and a black-box router you can't configure beyond maybe setting the SSID".

A part of the reason there's no IPV4 is providers used to be able to just keep asking for more and more. Many did just that.

Some providers have so many IPV4 addresses hoarded away that not only will they give you a free static IPV4, they will give you enough to put 1 on every device on your LAN, free.

Not discussing any provider in particular 😉

I'm accepting of the reality that is CGNAT on new entrants, but if you're building an ISP and you aren't IPv6 from day one then I will question your competence. I do agree that selling a product that is IPv4 CGNAT with no IPv6 is not an Internet connection, it's a web browsing service.

IPv6 has to be there if you are doing CGNAT, and there's no point doing it as a dynamic allocation either.

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by bertieb2:

Mini-rant but it seems now that it's cool to be geeky ISPs are rushing to brand themselves thus; then going, "okay here's your CGNAT 'internet' '''connection'''† and a black-box router you can't configure beyond maybe setting the SSID".

A part of the reason there's no IPV4 is providers used to be able to just keep asking for more and more. Many did just that.

Which is surprising because humans are normally so good at collectively managing limited resources... /s I'm actually kinda surprised IANA and the regional RIRs didn't / haven't clawed some of the bigger blocks back. Looking at you, FoMoCo and Merc with your entire /8 blocks. Not that it would do much now, and even if things were 'perfectly' allocated there's fewer addresses than people, but it could have been done better.

In reply to a post by jpm:

I do agree that selling a product that is IPv4 CGNAT with no IPv6 is not an Internet connection, it's a web browsing service.

You're spot on in your description. I guess the other slightly sad reality is most are happy enough with a web browsing service, and only complain something is amiss if they try to use something that can't do double-NAT punchthrough. A network of peers, not so much!

In reply to a post by jpm:

I'm accepting of the reality that is CGNAT on new entrants, but if you're building an ISP and you aren't IPv6 from day one then I will question your competence.

A certain large combination phone/TV/cable internet provider who will remain nameless amongst the many such providers once answered a query of mine some years back -- after the IPv4 exhaustion date -- which asked if they had plans to roll our IPv6, with a "no, we have no plans to go with a new protocol as it isn't necessary". Suffice to say I went with another provider who did have IPv6 plans.

Edited by bertieb2 (Tue 30-Jan-24 13:41:43)

In reply to a post by j0hn83:

In reply to a post by bertieb2:

Mini-rant but it seems now that it's cool to be geeky ISPs are rushing to brand themselves thus; then going, "okay here's your CGNAT 'internet' '''connection'''† and a black-box router you can't configure beyond maybe setting the SSID".

A part of the reason there's no IPV4 is providers used to be able to just keep asking for more and more. Many did just that.

Some providers have so many IPV4 addresses hoarded away that not only will they give you a free static IPV4, they will give you enough to put 1 on every device on your LAN, free.

Not discussing any provider in particular 😉

Also have a look at all the places that still have /8 allocations in IPv4.

I once did some work involving JANet and the amount of wasted IP's was criminal. Universities with class B allocations and using those on an internal network...

Claw all these back and we wouldn't have an IPv4 problem (for a few more years anyway)