Zen Internet feedback please

jsbombjack · 20 Jul 2020 at 13:40

Hi All,

My current provider (Origin) have had a chequered past in providing a decent service, and their customer service is not great.

Zen are currently top of the list to change to, but I am interested to know of any experience users have that they would like to share

Hutchy · 20 Jul 2020 at 13:42

Bit tricky as I've been with Zen for years and I've never had any slowdowns that a router reboot hasn't fixed. I've never had to ring their support team it's been that trouble free!

Hyburnate · 20 Jul 2020 at 15:05

I'm with Zen, same as above though not been with them massively long very happy - included router is suprisingly decent too.

VaderDSL · 20 Jul 2020 at 15:14

Been with Zen for years, they were the only people able to help when we moved to a new address. Since then they have been very reliable, was originally in ADSL 4mb with them, the. 38mb? Fttc then 76mg fttp then 150 fttp and I just did the upgrade to 500 fttp yesterday.

Hutchy · 20 Jul 2020 at 16:07

VaderDSL said:
Been with Zen for years, they were the only people able to help when we moved to a new address. Since then they have been very reliable, was originally in ADSL 4mb with them, the. 38mb? Fttc then 76mg fttp then 150 fttp and I just did the upgrade to 500 fttp yesterday.

How do you know if you can get 150 or 500 fttp?

VaderDSL · 20 Jul 2020 at 16:09

Hutchy said:
How do you know if you can get 150 or 500 fttp?

using their checker, will show you the packages available, they did have the older packages until recently, the 76, 150, 300 iirc. They have since updated to fall online with the new packages available, the 100, 500, 900 packages.

Avalon · 20 Jul 2020 at 19:36

Zen are not the cheapest, but provide decent hardware and a better *chance* at getting decent support. Are they as personal as Andrews & Arnold? No, but as a mainstream supplier, they are generally better than other ISP’s. That’s not to say other ISP’s don’t have decent staff, but I found Zen generally had more of them, more importantly they were more willing to use independent thought, rather than TS by script and zero application of logic.

lltfdaniel · 21 Jul 2020 at 15:44

For me i am on zen 80/20 fttc service,

Been with them for over 1 year and it has been good (no network issues whatsoever, no need to contact customer service) and good customer service (when i needed to contact them from the beginning so they organise open reach to check and fix my line as they did) and the router they give is not rubbish at all.

Dan.

MissChief · 21 Jul 2020 at 15:48

General consensus is they provide good kit with good, very technically minded support who can troubleshoot themselves as they have the knowledge but you also pay extra because they pay the support staff well. Horses for courses.

jsbombjack · 21 Jul 2020 at 16:15

Tbh, I would pay for better support rather than having to go through the same stupid questions every time there is a problem (as I do with my current provider).

Thanks all

bremen1874 · 21 Jul 2020 at 16:56

It depends on how often you have problems. You can end up paying out a lot of extra money (although not as much extra as it used to be) for nothing if you don't have a fault.

For the once every two years or so I have had an issue (always Openreach related) I'll put up with having to jump through a few hoops to get it fixed.

If Plusnet does anything to seriously **** me off I'll probably jump to Zen, but so far, over several years, their support has been good enough.

jsbombjack · 21 Jul 2020 at 18:59

Based on my experience, I have issues through Origin Broadband every couple of months or so. This means that I have to phone them, navigate the wait times to their helpdesk and the reading of scripts when I do get through. Of course this involves being transferred after the first round of script reading and the restarting of the process (wait, script etc). This is followed by me getting shirty with them and reminding them that one of their colleagues responded to a previous issue with the classic line of "I don't care". Then I usually get told to submit speed tests because the issue isn't anything they can see thus must be imaginary or a problem with my kit.

(I am not using their kit and might just about know what I am doing with the kit I have)

I submit the tests and then the issue mysteriously goes away a day or so later...

It's like the inverse of those script reading scammers that pretend to be from BT.

So a few quid extra for a (hopefully) more consistent service, and a helpdesk that is actually helpful seems like it might be worth the expenditure

bremen1874 · 21 Jul 2020 at 19:49

I find that most broadband problems are actually line problems (noisy, no dial tone, etc.).

Line faults are generally easy to get diagnosed without having to go through loads of fault-finding steps. The trick is to report them as phone faults and never mention broadband.

Once the line is fixed the broadband usually starts working again.

Eurofighter · 21 Jul 2020 at 20:59

Zen are the best because I used to work for them duh.

!bluetonic! · 22 Jul 2020 at 06:35

Here's your test.

Get a list of your potentials.

Phone their customer support number.

Whoever answers quickest with a human voice is the winner.

I'm a Zen customer of many years.

Deleted member 77746 · 24 Jul 2020 at 21:34

I’ve been with Zen for a very long time and the first day I’ve had down time is yesterday. Wasn’t a problem I knew it would be fixed as fast as possible.

bremen1874 · 24 Jul 2020 at 22:55

mrbell1984 said:
Wasn’t a problem I knew it would be fixed as fast as possible.

This was the Openreach issue? If so, not something under their control or something they would have actually fixed.

Deleted member 77746 · 24 Jul 2020 at 22:58

bremen1874 said:
This was the Openreach issue? If so, not something under their control or something they would have actually fixed.

Yeh exactly, it's still a first time down and not a fault of Zen, I already know this so really it's still 100% uptime in my eyes.

bremen1874 · 24 Jul 2020 at 23:11

So not a reason to recommend Zen one way or the other?

My Internet use dates back to pre-56K dial-up. I don't think any of my downtime over all those years has actually been the ISP's fault.

My only significant problem over the years was with Bulldog who just couldn't sort out their billing issues.

Zen is a perfectly good ISP, but for most of the time what are you paying the extra money they charge for?

There are ISPs who's customer support I dread having to call, BT domestic comes to mind, but most ISPs are perfectly capable of dealing with a line related fault (which covers most issues).

Deleted member 77746 · 24 Jul 2020 at 23:13

bremen1874 said:
So not a reason to recommend Zen one way or the other?

My Internet use dates back to pre-56K dial-up. I don't think any of my downtime over all those years has actually been the ISP's fault.

My only significant problem over the years was with Bulldog who just couldn't sort out their billing issues.

Zen is a perfectly good ISP, but for most of the time what are you paying the extra money they charge for?

There are ISPs who's customer support I dread having to call, BT domestic comes to mind, but most ISPs are perfectly capable of dealing with a line related fault (which covers most issues).

Most ISPs don't care about network congestion i.e Sky/TalkTalk e.t.c. Zen do and they prevent it where possible. I recommend Zen 100%.