Are Zen a decent ISP?

tntcoder

tntcoder

tntcoder

Soldato
Joined
7 Apr 2004
Posts
4,212
Hey,

UKFSN have warn me down, and just got my MAC. I think it's time for either time for Sky or Zen, and Sky seem to get slated quite a bit, but I think ive only heard good stuff about Zen? I'm after 30gb/month with minimal traffic shaping on ADSL up to 8mb.

These are my line stats, and I never get over 160kb/s on UKFSN, and often only 30/50kb/s during peak hours. I've had 3mb on the same line before on a different ISP, so im hoping a change will fix it. Or at least give me a consistent speed across the day.

Code: 
Us Rate (Kbps)  	   	448
Ds Rate (Kbps) 	  	1856
US Margin 	  	17
DS Margin 	  	13
Trained Modulation 	  	GDMT
LOS Errors 	  	0
DS Line Attenuation 	  	56
US Line Attenuation 	  	31
Peak Cell Rate 	  	1056 cells per sec
CRC Rx Fast 	  	0
CRC Tx Fast 	  	0
CRC Rx Interleaved 	  	732
CRC Tx Interleaved 	  	1
Path Mode 	  	Interleaved

So, Zen's £24.99 package or should I look else where?

Thanks.
 
Go AAISP, brilliant support.

I'm actually on UKOnline at the moment, on a similar ADSL max line (~2.5Mb sync at best). I'm on their £15 2Mb package and as far as I can tell they don't care how much you download (I've certainly never run into a FUP despite lots of torrents and newsgroups). Speeds are alright all day, and i'd wholeheartedly recommend them if it weren't for an annoying connection quality issue in the evenings (~6% packet loss) which ruins TF2 for me. Not that you can actually sign up with them, their ordering system has been down for over a year.
I'll probably change to AAISP when I can afford to pay for a decent amount of peak time allowance.
 
I worked a LOT with Zen in my previous job. They are very good (I actually went as part of my companies relationship with them to see how they work, etc). Their BSU is very good also.
 
They're alright, not as good as they once were though IMO.

If you can stump up the extra money providers like AAISP trounce them in every way, but as Zarf mentions over 20CN (ADSL Max) peak time bandwidth is very expensive on their service.
 
wij said:
They're alright, not as good as they once were though IMO.

If you can stump up the extra money providers like AAISP trounce them in every way, but as Zarf mentions over 20CN (ADSL Max) peak time bandwidth is very expensive on their service.
Click to expand...

Thanks, yer im not sure the peak time bandwidth cost is feasible on AAISP sadly, would need at least 10gb, which brings costs to £45/month :(
 
Had numerous internet providers throughout the years, but last 2 years sky even though a long way from exchange I only get 1.5MB, but its always there no slow downs at all and cheap if you have TV package.

I don't like their first line support when the exchange has dropped and line lost sync once. Was very hard to get past and convince it wasn't my end, but I think that's pretty usual.
 
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Zen are pretty good, but they're expensive iirc, I was paying £35\month for 2Mbit and with a cap... Was a little bit weaksauce. But this was back in the day.
 
I was about to psot a question about a new ISP .. but you seem to have answerd my question about a good ISP. I might go with AAISP as there standard 17.99 a month package looks ok. 50GB offpeak is plenty.. 1GB on peak (but ill have to make sure i dont leave any torrents going during the day :D).. Can i disable downloads during the day on any clients / routers?

Does anyone know the cost for going over the 1GB limit? And are there any hidden connection charges or is it free? .. I have a standard BT line which is activated today in my new property they estimate a 2.5MB downlado rate on ADSL Max..
 
AAISP's pricing is all on their site... a new install would be £50.

As for "turning off downloads" well you could just turn the PC off or make sure things are set to not auto update during peak hours.

Excess use is £4.99 as apposed to £3 if you buy units up front, if it were me I'd maybe buy a couple of extra units as they roll over for a month and if you find you're not using them drop the tariff down.
 
Ok.. i cant really turn that PC off as its my HTPC and is always on recording TV etc. Which is why it will be tricky to regulate if i forget to turn off any torrents etc.

Is there customer service as good as people have said? Thats one big factor for me as i always seems to get dodgy lines and problems when moving into new accomodation.
 
I highly rate NDO. Not the cheapest but no throttling, a generous 60Gb per month limit (now doubled I beleive from a recent email I got), no peak time rubbish.

Been with them for years. Good customer service (if ever needed).

Currently getting 3.5Mb (BT and Samknows still say my max should be 1Mb????????) and I live in the sticks a long way from the exchange. Only ever had broadband go down once and that was a BT line fault.
 
NDO seems ok. .£12.99 for 8mb.. although it says 1GB limit. Do you pay extra for more space?. Might give them a go. Had any issues and used customer service much?
 
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nintenjo said:
NDO seems ok. .£12.99 for 8mb.. although it says 1GB limit. Do you pay extra for more space?. Might give them a go. Had any issues and used customer service much?
Click to expand...

I think I pay £19.99 for 60Gb (now 120gb) a month. For an extra tenner a month you can add 50gb a month extra.

Used customer services when I was first setting up the router and they were great. Only other time or two was when it turned out to be BT's fault but they were very good talking me through checks.

Also after it turned out we had a dodgy crackly phone line once, I rang them up to get the line re-synced or whatever it's called which was easy too.

The tech/customer service people are all English which helps.
 
I went to Zen after moving from Tiscali (terrible ISP). Zen were excellent with very good customer support (actually technical people who understood what I was talking about - I requested if they could change the interleaving setting on my line).

I also been in contact with them whilst setting up a leased line for where I work, again excellent support.

For home ADSL they are expensive, but you get what you pay for.
 
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