Zen FTTC 20% off

Soldato
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Ok, so if I'm on 74/19 VDSL, recently noticed my ping jump up in games by around 5-10ms, what can I ask Plusnet to check?
I'd say that sounds like interleave has been enabled which as far as I know is automatic with fibre connections. It's basically active because you were/are getting errors/lost info/noise on your line and it's there to 'stabilise' it.
http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/interleaving.htm

Not sure what you have in your router settings but some do show if it's active or not.
 

Deleted member 651465

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Deleted member 651465

Just check on plusnet by clicking next and putting in your number that you are in a LLU area, as the offer for me was £29.99/m but then it said im outside so it is actually £36.99
I'm in the LLU area. Is it still worth going Plusnet over Zen? I thought PN did traffic prioritization but apparently they don't anymore?
 
Associate
OP
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Personally I nearly went with PN, but i wasnt in a LLU area so it was something near zen price, so that won me over to Zen.

but working it all out I know £6.01/m is £144.24 over the two year term. so that's a decent saving.
Also suppose there is cancellation notice if plusnet is rubbish.

However you do get a Fritz box with Zen now, and there decent modems/routers, you could easily re-sell these and make up some of that £144 difference. - just a thought

happy with zen so far though, day 1 into it like, can notice things are slightly snappier then BT's service, but this just prob DNS requests.
 

Deleted member 651465

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Deleted member 651465

I'm leaning toward PN on a 12 month contract versus Zen on 24 month contract.

Edit: just ordered PN. There's a £40 cashback offer on TCB and I can re-evaluate my options after 12 months. It came down to cost for me.. instead of spending an extra £144 over the 2 years for what is basically the same service I couldn't justify the extra.
 
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Deleted member 138126

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Deleted member 138126

For me, the difference is that Zen is an ISP run by nerds, whereas PlusNet is just a big soulless corporation. Zen customer service has always been amazing, every person you speak to knows what they're doing. You also get a dedicated IPv6 range allocated to you, static IPv4. Performance I'd have to say is the same as what I had with BT previously, which is to say with both BT and Zen I've always the full VDSL sync speed (60 down for me).
 
Soldato
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And why do you need to ring Zen so much, that warrants the extra cost in service? Tbh I find most consumer ISPs (except Talktalk) to be adequate.

It should be very rare that you need your ISP for support. I always go with price if performance is no different.
 

Deleted member 138126

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Deleted member 138126

And why do you need to ring Zen so much, that warrants the extra cost in service? Tbh I find most consumer ISPs (except Talktalk) to be adequate.

It should be very rare that you need your ISP for support. I always go with price if performance is no different.
Sure... until you do need them. I've had to work with Zen support exactly three times:

1) When I moved from BT to Zen. Flawless. Can't say the same for any of my house moves while I was with BT. BT support is horrendous, takes forever, is very convoluted, you can end up on the phone for an hour for something trivial, they've no idea what they're doing, they're just pushing keys on some internal support system. They're not empowered, they can't give any useful information, and at the base level, they just don't care, they have no motivation to own a support issue. Every single move I did while I was with them had multiple stuff-ups, where I usually ended up without Internet at the new address for many weeks as a result of their incompetence. Given that (until recently) OpenReach was a division of BT, it's all the more shocking that an external company like Zen can provide so much of a better experience given it is something they do not control. And have you seen a BT bill? It is *on purpose* made so complicated that it's very difficult to work out what you owe and how you pay for things (e.g. they give you the option of pre-paying for a year's worth of line rental -- why? And good luck with figuring out how that factors into your bill, and when it expires).
2) Something happened on my physical line, and the speed dropped significantly. In the end three OpenReach engineers had to come out to sort it out. Ended up with about 10% faster download (and slightly slower upload) than I had before, so I was happy in the end (and no loss of service, just a fair bit slower for a week or so). Again, working with Zen was flawless, they chased twice daily, gave me twice daily updates, called me at least twice over the course of the week or so that it took to resolve to give me very verbose updates about what was going on. Absolutely stunning level of service.
3) When I signed up for the above-mentioned promotion. Got through in under a minute, very friendly, all done in less than five minutes.

Given the price difference is quite small, plenty of premium technical features, and amazing technical support staff, I honestly don't know how or why anyone would choose any other ISP.
 

Deleted member 138126

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Deleted member 138126

Plus I feel that small companies like Zen (and Overclockers for that matter) that do a great job deserve to be supported. Also, aren't we a geek community? Would've thought that aspect alone would sell it.
 

Deleted member 138126

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Deleted member 138126

ISP has nothing to do with what you sync at. What's likely happened is a DLM reset when the line switched over.
Of course. I just related that as an anecdote. My point was that Zen managed the OpenReach relationship a million times better than BT ever did.
 
Soldato
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ISP has nothing to do with what you sync at.

Not 100% correct if my experience is anything to go by. I moved from Zen ADSL Max to Zen FTTC in February 2012, at the time i was connecting at 75000Kbps using WBT backhaul. Over the 5 years since then my connection speed had steadily dropped, to a low point of 65569Kbps in February this year. Most of that is down to DLM and crosstalk as the cab i'm connected to has been filled. In February this year i was transferred to Zen's own backhaul (GEA), Straight away Interleaving came off and my connection speed went up to 73172Kbps and has stayed at that ever since. Not once has my modem or router dropped a connection since then either, unlike on WBT's backhaul.
In my case, ISP and how good an ISP's own backhaul is has everything to do with Sync speed.
 
Caporegime
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What probably happened was that a move triggered a DLM reset. There is no relationship between backhaul provider and what your modem syncs at when connected to the same DSLAM as every other FTTC customer.
 
Soldato
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Stourport-On-Severn
What probably happened was that a move triggered a DLM reset. There is no relationship between backhaul provider and what your modem syncs at when connected to the same DSLAM as every other FTTC customer.

I don't disagree with you. But the fact that when i was moved to Zen's backhaul Interleaving came off straight away, hasn't come back on since and my speed went back up to 73172Kbps............................says to me i'd much rather be in the position i am now than the position i was in before.
 
Man of Honour
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Екатеринбург
What's the free Zen FTTC router like ? Do I need it ? I have an Asus AC68U and another modem/router (Technicolor something ) in bridge mode. Will Zen walk me through this ?
I’m also interested in seeing any replies to this. I’ve just signed up for Zen and am unsure whether or not to keep my Netgear R7000. The Fritzbox gets good reviews but it’s difficult to find a meaningful comparison.
 
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