Are Zen still the go to ISP?
- Thread starter LabR@t
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Soldato
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In theory, Zen provides better support, but I've seen good and bad reports for them both.
Personally I've been happy enough with Plusnet for the last few years. All the issues while I've had while I've been with them have been Openreach related and Plusnet dealt with them well enough. If I'd been with Zen I'd just be a bit poorer.
If you're going with Plusnet don't forget to check Quidco and TopCashBack for offers.
Personally I've been happy enough with Plusnet for the last few years. All the issues while I've had while I've been with them have been Openreach related and Plusnet dealt with them well enough. If I'd been with Zen I'd just be a bit poorer.
If you're going with Plusnet don't forget to check Quidco and TopCashBack for offers.
Associate
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Im with Zen now but had years trouble-free with Plusnet before. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend either tbh. As mentioned, the main difference at your speed is probably the price.
Plusnet billing system has quirks when changing things, that said CS fix things reasonably quickly and with minimal agro when it’s pointed out, for example I recurved enhanced SLA repairs free for ages as they didn’t bill me, when we needed it, they still honoured it/fixed it, they are still my go-to for FTTC (no official gfast/FTTP rollout), not sure if they still do the ability to add a static IP for a one off £5 payment on residential? The default Hub is OK and the HH6 was a drop in replacement if you want better WiFi. Zen are generally a little better in support and billing is usually faultless, but it really depends who you get, if you regularly have line faults etc. and tend to be on the phone to your ISP regularly, then a) get your fault fixed and b) possibly consider an ISP with a better trained/supported technical team (Zen), but on a repeat fault any ISP should be sorting a OR visit and appropriate steps to resolve the issue rather than the turn it off and on again approach.
We've had Plusnet for about 16 months now, moved from one house to another, and the last few months have had a lot of trouble with them. Slow speeds, wifi cutting out and things just not seemingly working. They also seem to charge us different amounts each month which is really annoying.
We've had so much hassle recently that we are thinking about leaving them next month when our contract runs out. Either going Vodafone Gigafast or Sky with a current deal they are offering.
We've had so much hassle recently that we are thinking about leaving them next month when our contract runs out. Either going Vodafone Gigafast or Sky with a current deal they are offering.
I have tried Virgin, Talktalk, BT and Zen in the past. Zen beat the others hands down. Their support is second to none. The others are terrible. In the case of Talktalk I was literally afraid to phone them. The number of mistakes they made when I was trying to communicate with them was scary. I mean at one point I added and extra service to my contract and they took the addition as they only thing I wanted and cancelled my broadband. It then took two weeks to reconnect it. The problem is the overseas CS. Thing is that many people who's first language is NOT English understand every word you say, but they don't understand the sentence. So I am afraid I much prefer CS where their first language is English. Of course, just because they fully understand you doesn't mean they can perform miracles and sort out every issue. Many problems come down to Openreach to sort out. So Zen are not perfect. They are just better. I remember when I bought a Draytek router. Darn thing, it's user interface is badly laid out and I couldn't get it to work. I can tell you that the other suppliers would tell you to get lost if you bought a router that was not on their lists, that has happened to me before, but the Zen, the tech guy sat on the phone for half an hour while I paged through the configuration trying to make sense of it. He didn't know the router either, but he spent the time trying to help me rather than just hanging up on me. When you have lost your broadband, that dedication to your job is worth every extra penny they change.
Soldato
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- 19 Oct 2008
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I just switched to Vodafone after using Zen for so many years(16+). Reason for transfer was being on a business tariff and realising £50 a month for BB and phone was a bit high. Contacted them in the past about it and first time was within a contract period, due to a house move and they said I'd have to pay a cancellation fee to swap(weird considering my years with them), and second time they called once, never left a message and didn't bother calling again or emailing. My connection has been a bit dodgy lately although I don't blame zen for that (BT, yes), so decided to transfer to VF to try another service for a while if I'm not going to see my old transfer speed again - I used to see 80Mbps at one time. Had to call them 2-3 times a year recently to get someone out from BT to check things over, each time finding a fault, usually with their own green cabinets that they seem to be always going into, daily.
Anyway, VF still balancing the line at the moment (day 2 only) but it's dropped to 62 from the 69 I was recently getting with Zen so hopefully that improves as they did say the speed should not drop. I've also had an issue with DNS which has been a right PITA. FIne for normal use but couldn't get to some servers behind a company VPN for some reason. Ended up having to change the network adapter settings to use other DNS servers(google) for both IPv4 and IPv6.
Still, free for 6 months and nearly half the price of ZEN per month after the free period, and with an additional £2 off for being a mobile customer, I'll see how it goes for the next 2 years.
Zen support were indeed very good at helping get issues resolved, ie, diagnostics and then engaging with BT/Openworld to investigate and fix issues.
Anyway, VF still balancing the line at the moment (day 2 only) but it's dropped to 62 from the 69 I was recently getting with Zen so hopefully that improves as they did say the speed should not drop. I've also had an issue with DNS which has been a right PITA. FIne for normal use but couldn't get to some servers behind a company VPN for some reason. Ended up having to change the network adapter settings to use other DNS servers(google) for both IPv4 and IPv6.
Still, free for 6 months and nearly half the price of ZEN per month after the free period, and with an additional £2 off for being a mobile customer, I'll see how it goes for the next 2 years.
Zen support were indeed very good at helping get issues resolved, ie, diagnostics and then engaging with BT/Openworld to investigate and fix issues.
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Zen are meant to be one of the better, have had a nightmare with them for the last two weeks sadly and this is on our reseller account.
Full Fibre line migrated from one ISP @ 330Mb/30Mb to Zen 900Mb. Migration was smooth, speed still locked at 330/30. We are now two weeks into this issue and they are still saying there's an issue our end with the kit...
Despite two BT visits confirming when plugged directly in / me plugging directly in and PPPoE session via laptop that can easily speedtest.
I guess it's all still relatively new, BT and Zen are just going back and forth blaming each other, it's becoming really dull.
Full Fibre line migrated from one ISP @ 330Mb/30Mb to Zen 900Mb. Migration was smooth, speed still locked at 330/30. We are now two weeks into this issue and they are still saying there's an issue our end with the kit...
Despite two BT visits confirming when plugged directly in / me plugging directly in and PPPoE session via laptop that can easily speedtest.
I guess it's all still relatively new, BT and Zen are just going back and forth blaming each other, it's becoming really dull.