FTTP Thoughts?
So I am still in the diagnosis zone and making zero obvious progress. The challenge is I have been busy and away from home so unable to undertake tests requested but long story short Zen have still not sourced the route cause of my issues and they remain. I am told there is zero contention on my circuit, I should not see any slow down at any time, which is what I was told. But I am and something in the Zen network is not working.
Having worked in the tech industry my entire life, we are now in the serious techs are serious not wanting to lift a finger until the less serious techs can prove it's their problem, so more tests whilst they forget who their customer is (serious techs). I will give them to the middle of next week at which point I will draw a line under it and move away from them. I have given them enough time to resolve this by then, I am tired of testing each little thing and frankly if it is one of those issues that is just hard to locate I will not hang about to be their diagnosis monkey when I have seen BT can deliver the speeds to my home, I will move.
I hope Zen can sort it out but right now I am not sure they have a clue where to look. I have also said I don't want another BT visit unless its accompanied by a Zen tech too. Then I will lock them in until they fix it.
Having worked in the tech industry my entire life, we are now in the serious techs are serious not wanting to lift a finger until the less serious techs can prove it's their problem, so more tests whilst they forget who their customer is (serious techs). I will give them to the middle of next week at which point I will draw a line under it and move away from them. I have given them enough time to resolve this by then, I am tired of testing each little thing and frankly if it is one of those issues that is just hard to locate I will not hang about to be their diagnosis monkey when I have seen BT can deliver the speeds to my home, I will move.
I hope Zen can sort it out but right now I am not sure they have a clue where to look. I have also said I don't want another BT visit unless its accompanied by a Zen tech too. Then I will lock them in until they fix it.
Latest update after MUCH MUCH testing of various aspects of my services comes today....
"I've just been liaising with BT Wholesale and determined the following....
Your exchange Dapple Heath (WMDAP) is a child exchange of Uttoxeter (WMUTT). This means that your FTTP connection jumps on the BT Wholesale back haul at Uttoxeter.
The link between you and Uttoxeter only has one VLAN at present, and as far as I can gather, this VLAN is set to 500Mbps. This means that your connection alone, takes up 2/3 of this capacity.
The guys who I was speaking with at BT have passed this on to their Capacity Management team to see what can be done. They will hopefully be able to either increase the capacity on the VLAN, or, get new links added. If it's the latter (which I think is most likely), it may take a bit of time for this to be implemented, unfortunately."
It disappoints me that it has taken this long to get to establishing this, but I am looking at it as the route cause of my issue. Watch this space for updates, but I guess living remotely has advantages and disadvantages, but one would have hoped that if BT has made the service ready for consumers to buy, then they might have put the appropriate infrastructure in place to support it....but it seems not. I guess they did not expect people to jump in with the request for 300mbps services all at once when myself an my neighbour both went for that service because 'speeds init'
"I've just been liaising with BT Wholesale and determined the following....
Your exchange Dapple Heath (WMDAP) is a child exchange of Uttoxeter (WMUTT). This means that your FTTP connection jumps on the BT Wholesale back haul at Uttoxeter.
The link between you and Uttoxeter only has one VLAN at present, and as far as I can gather, this VLAN is set to 500Mbps. This means that your connection alone, takes up 2/3 of this capacity.
The guys who I was speaking with at BT have passed this on to their Capacity Management team to see what can be done. They will hopefully be able to either increase the capacity on the VLAN, or, get new links added. If it's the latter (which I think is most likely), it may take a bit of time for this to be implemented, unfortunately."
It disappoints me that it has taken this long to get to establishing this, but I am looking at it as the route cause of my issue. Watch this space for updates, but I guess living remotely has advantages and disadvantages, but one would have hoped that if BT has made the service ready for consumers to buy, then they might have put the appropriate infrastructure in place to support it....but it seems not. I guess they did not expect people to jump in with the request for 300mbps services all at once when myself an my neighbour both went for that service because 'speeds init'
To be fair to Zen they have been merciless in working the problem, it has taken a lot longer than I would have hoped but I cannot lay that all at their feet as I have been busy and away from home quite a bit meaning testing had to wait for several days on a coupe of occasions. I suspect a problem like this, residing with BT would have been much more painful due to the sheer size of their business and my 32 years experience of working with BT evidences this is usually where they fall apart. Hopefully we can get it resolved and I can get my service fixed but it means moving to another provider right now is not going to provide a fix.
So a longer chat with my neighbour this afternoon confirms he is no longer getting super speeds with BT, he is now in the 'Housey Zone' speed wise, as slow as 2mbps on some occasions! So it would seem that all eyes are back to BT (which we sort of knew) and it is for this reason I am REALLY glad I am with Zen as I suspect the support conversations would have been so much more painful. I am now informing my neighbour with his BT service what BT are dong because no one at BT has the slightest ******* idea when he speaks with them it would seem.
Painful but sort of evidences my starting point about support and why you pay more. Time will tell, BT confirmed VLAN upgrades this week....
Painful but sort of evidences my starting point about support and why you pay more. Time will tell, BT confirmed VLAN upgrades this week....
If I am objective and put the emotions of "my new toy is broken" from the discussion, I have to complement Zen again. They are working the problem, they are keeping me daily updated and are pushing hard to get it fixed. THAT is what you pay for and at no time have I experienced the level of service they are providing right now from a BT service.
Yes we were FTTC before but bare in mind our exchange has:
365 residential premises
62 non-residential premises
It is small and it would not surprise me if many of those premises don't even have an internet. Think retired, farmers, cows in sheds.
365 residential premises
62 non-residential premises
It is small and it would not surprise me if many of those premises don't even have an internet. Think retired, farmers, cows in sheds.
They have done everything they can and have gone the extra mile to work on the problem with me and dealt with my frustrations and on a couple of occasions anger and for that they will continue to get my business and loyalty. I can't complain at Zen for this one, as it is now clear the issues is NOT them, but their service partner. They do seem to have routes into BT that most don't as well so they speak to them daily and get answers. Impressive as ever and to those who suggest a service is just a service that is not the case, it rarely if ever is the case in my experience.
BT are finishing off the upgrades of VLAN's but seems I am getting a consistent speed of 300Mbps via the very simple fast.net test. When I move to speedtest.net is reduced to circa 250Mbps and 52Mbps uploads, but that shows the variations in speed test websites I suppose.
Well, all being told didn't sound like the smoothest journey ever, but fair play that they upgraded the VLANs in not too long a time span
I was told by BT that most people (less than 5%) are going 'full fat' on the speed option. I suspect they hoped they could bide their time but the first 2 people went 'full fat' on our exchange and they took a bath on that decision. Zen have as always been on it daily and keeping me in the loop daily. It's been painful but we got to the point of failure and they have seemingly fixed it quickly (when found). It is interesting that my neighbor who is with BT has had to come to me for updates as BT were clueless. Evidences why you pay more I guess...
I would have hoped it could have been diagnosed quicker as I felt that took too long in hindsight, but once the issue was fixed the time to fix was acceptable based on the work that needed doing.
100% and why I pay extra for Zen to my point at the very start of this thread and as has been evidenced throughout it....even though I wasn't 100% sure Zen were going to fix it mid term but they came good and I have never doubted their commitment to fix it or their quality of communication. OpenReach would not have delivered this level of support and this is confirmed by my neighbor who is with BT and knew none of the detail.
Pleased to say my Zen connection is now flying and providing consistent high performance. This was 5 minutes ago and is pretty much the same (within 10 Mbps download) whenever I have run it since the tech in my exchange was sorted.
Excellent.