Zen internet FTTP package upgrades...

[ViRuS2k]

Zen have just introduced 300-500-900mb upgrades

just upgraded to the 900 package from 300mb that i had with them was paying £60 per month, there 900mb package is £70 per month, for £10 more it was a no brainer

cant wait to get activated, they say it should take up to 72hours

 

[Ayahuasca]

I despair at what the average FTTP package costs are going to be once most people can get it.

Look around Europe or even certain smaller ISPs in the UK like toob and it's half that for 1 gig down and up.

 

[XeNoNF50]

It's great that it's available but jeez is that expensive. I pay £40.50 a month for symmetric gigabit with Hyperoptic.

 

[Avalon]

I despair at what the average FTTP package costs are going to be once most people can get it.

Look around Europe or even certain smaller ISPs in the UK like toob and it's half that for 1 gig down and up.

For the 99% of the population who can’t get Toob, did you really just compare an almost non existent alt-net cherry picking where it wants to try and compete against VM in Southampton to a top 10 national ISP who leases the last mile from OR and then has to add on for everything else? I mean it’s not like Zen have staked a claim on being the cheapest service, even BT (by the time you factor in offer pricing and cash back) are circa £50/m for the same OR profile.

Comparing EU providers to UK is also not that easy, many EU nations have interesting histories when it comes to network build, a direct financial comparison also doesn’t allow for cost of living/average earnings etc. I pay £15/m for a server with symmetrical gigabit in France, I do it because it happens to be local and cheap, it’s a tenner more in Germany and roughly twice that in the UK/Ireland, places have different cost bases.

 

[Sparx]

I despair at what the average FTTP package costs are going to be once most people can get it.

Look around Europe or even certain smaller ISPs in the UK like toob and it's half that for 1 gig down and up.

Anyone would think Openreach already managed to recoup their billions invested into laying FTTP already

Well known that any new / heavily invested product will carry a premium tag, which is needed to try recoup some investment. I'd say it's a very fair price considering, nothing making you pay that price tag.

I'd say most that actually need it and can make use of 1Gb, should be very affordable for them.

 

[Ayahuasca]

OR have stalled on FTTP for years, it's no surprise it's costing them a lot more to do it now and they're passing the buck to the customer through the providers.

£50 for 900/100 isn't too shabby, no. It's just not great in the grand scheme of things, once you factor in inevitable prices rises and you run out of new customer offers with the providers you would actually use.

 

[Semple]

I would guess the cost is also high because the majority of the population won't have a need for speeds that high. i.e. you want the best, you've gotta pay for the best.

We're running on standard FTTC speeds 80/20 and very rarely saturate the link. Yes it might be nicer for any game downloads or updates to install in half the time, but it's absolutely bearable. Just means i have to be proactive in that if i have an update to download, then i'll switch my PC on a little earlier than usual.

No issues streaming content over the likes of Netflix et al.


I'd actually be interested in those that have 500mb/1Gb line speeds, what their monthly utilisation looks like. If the line is only 10% utilised over an entire month, then that's a lot of idle time for a fat pipe.

 

[Avalon]

OR have stalled on FTTP for years, it's no surprise it's costing them a lot more to do it now and they're passing the buck to the customer through the providers.

£50 for 900/100 isn't too shabby, no. It's just not great in the grand scheme of things, once you factor in inevitable prices rises and you run out of new customer offers with the providers you would actually use.

That doesn’t make much sense. The Government stalled on FTTP for decades when the network was state owned, BT stalled it for decades when it took over, now OR has been given the task while it operates the network for the benefit of all (or so they seem to think). As to the cost to deploy, what exactly are you basing the ‘it’s costing a lot more to do now’ comment on? Construction costs are arguably lower now than ever before and more money is available for them from investors, if they weren’t, your alt-nets probably wouldn’t exist.

As to the price rises, it’s a free market for most OR FTTP, if the price goes up, you have the option to move or re-contract at a discount, but OR’s pricing has gone down significantly and speeds increased significantly recently, that’s been reflected in the price point the providers offering FTTP go in at. This is still ‘new’ technology and as such you pay a premium, when all the big players get involved competition will dictate price, much as it did in FTTC and every iteration previously.

 

[Ayahuasca]

The only thing I could see being cheaper now is the materials due to better production methods. Everything else like payroll, the fees they have to pay to dig up roads and pavements etc has to be higher than it was 14 years ago. If they've got more money to fund it from investors then that's great, but the same investors will want to see big returns on that.

It may be a 'new' technology for us but it didn't have to be.

 

[Caged]

ADSL was £25-30 on top of a £12 phone line in 2001, that's around £65 now.

The UKs addiction to broadband being a cheap service probably has a lot to do with why FTTP has been so slow to roll out, you can't have these really labour-intensive services deployed if you aren't willing to provide the environment for them to be sustainable financially.

The UK is also the country where people will be straight in the local papers complaining if they get telegraph poles installed, which hampers progress.

 

[Ayahuasca]

ADSL was £25-30 on top of a £12 phone line in 2001, that's around £65 now.

The UKs addiction to broadband being a cheap service probably has a lot to do with why FTTP has been so slow to roll out, you can't have these really labour-intensive services deployed if you aren't willing to provide the environment for them to be sustainable financially.

The UK is also the country where people will be straight in the local papers complaining if they get telegraph poles installed, which hampers progress.

That I can understand, I was likely just jumping to conclusions based on the OP. I just don't want to see the average cost for not even the top package being close to £70pm.

 

[Caged]

Zen will always be an outlier towards the top of the market, people have their reasons for going with them but price isn't one of them I don't think. You should be reassured regarding average pricing once TalkTalk, Sky etc. get involved with FTTP.

 

[Semple]

Zen will always be an outlier towards the top of the market, people have their reasons for going with them but price isn't one of them I don't think.

That was my understanding of Zen as well. I hear also the excellent customer service - so i guess a case of you get what you pay for.

 

[Caged]

I think they're probably still the lowest cost provider offering static IPv4 and an IPv6 allocation (other than Hyperoptic who serve a comparatively tiny market), so I can see the appeal for people working in IT to pay a small premium for access to that.

 

[atomic7431]

Zen have just introduced 300-500-900mb upgrades

just upgraded to the 900 package from 300mb that i had with them was paying £60 per month, there 900mb package is £70 per month, for £10 more it was a no brainer

cant wait to get activated, they say it should take up to 72hours

I place a regrade order 3 days ago as well, was told it would be live in that time, however they have an issue placing the order somewhere in their system.
Have you been advised of the same thing or has yours got a go live date yet? in the customer portal my escalation is set to amber.
I have been told various people including openreach are looking into why zen are unable to place the regrade orders currently.

 

[spoffle]

OR have stalled on FTTP for years, it's no surprise it's costing them a lot more to do it now and they're passing the buck to the customer through the providers.

£50 for 900/100 isn't too shabby, no. It's just not great in the grand scheme of things, once you factor in inevitable prices rises and you run out of new customer offers with the providers you would actually use.

The costs will decrease as more people have access. It will become more commoditised as the availability and competition increase. It's already happened in a relative sense anyway.

Prior to me upgrading to 1Gb, I was paying £46 a month for 330/50. An increase of about 10% in my monthly price has pretty much tripled my upload and download bandwidth. With how scarcely available Openreach FTTP is, it's genuinely not that bad of a price. It's also marginally more expensive than what I was paying Virgin for 350/20 last year for an infinitely worse connection that had stability problems and was awful for games.

As Openreach FTTP becomes more available, other ISPs will be able to offer it and we'll start to see loads of competition on price. Gigabit isn't gonna be the end goal either.

 

[Caged]

It's worth looking at Gigaclear's pricing as well before assuming Openreach are an outlier with their FTTP pricing. Granted, Gigaclear is a symmetric product but if you want 100Mbps down you're paying £44 vs. £40 with BT for a 160Mbps service, 300Mbps will cost you £49 which can get you 500Mbps with BT.

Yes it's not a direct comparison due to the asymmetric nature of it all, but I don't think comparing prices with providers that are following a startup model of attracting investment with the exit strategy of being acquired, and have put out more press releases than actual properties they've connected is fair. Zzoomm (silly name) are building in Henley-on-Thames and a gigabit will cost you £59. Virgin 500Mbps is £62 once you're out of the initial discount period.

I'd obviously like the prices to come down, as spoffle wrote above they will come down in real terms over time as more providers get involved. I'd rather things were priced at a sustainable level than to have a succession of new players trying to do a gigabit for £25 a month and leaving half-built networks in the ground, or getting an FTTP service that is unusable at peak times because there was no cash available to invest in the service.

 

[ViRuS2k]

I place a regrade order 3 days ago as well, was told it would be live in that time, however they have an issue placing the order somewhere in their system.
Have you been advised of the same thing or has yours got a go live date yet? in the customer portal my escalation is set to amber.
I have been told various people including openreach are looking into why zen are unable to place the regrade orders currently.

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2xxxx05 Residential FTTP to Full Fibre Regrade Care Level: Standard New Product: Full Fibre 900 Bundle: No zenxxxxxx@zen £8.29 Mr Lxxxx Gxxxxm n/a Work in progress, since 15/07/2020 13:29

Manually place modify order with BT Wholesale - IN PROGRESS FOR 1 DAY

I dont have any amber colors though, i was told a few different storys : that it would be live in 24-72hours or it could take up to 5 days.
im in no hurry i have 300/50 at the moment i can wait

 

[VaderDSL]

After seeing this post, I rang up and changed from my 150 to the 500 cheers for posting.

 

[atomic7431]