Zen Internet

I've been with Zen for almost 5 years and 3 house moves and think they are excellent.

The problem with getting broadband in my (and friends') experience is that you look at the prices and Zen looks pricey and others look much cheaper. So you go for the cheaper option and all is fine ... until you have an issue and have to phone support and then you end up wanting to throttle the support staff and hurl your router out of the window. What you are paying for is broadband PLUS insurance.

I've had little cause to phone Zen support but when I have they have treated me like an adult, don't read from pre-prepared scripts that drive me crazy, know what they are talking about and they have ALWAYS sorted out any problem I had. After moving to my last place they did speed tests down the line and even partially reprogrammed my local BT exchange to sort things out. They give me their names and sometimes their own personal support number.

I've moved in to share with my partner and his BB was with TalkTalk previously. Out internet connection would be fine one day and then the line could drop and reconnect 10 times in an hour or worse on somedays. I recommended we went to Zen - we didn't notice any hiccup at all on the day of the switchover, except that one the same phone line, splitter and router we now have 100% and faster broadband. Just like that.

Zen do have a download cap and they cost more than many, but they deliver what they say, have superb support and a 1 month contract so that you can leave if you're not happy. Good value does not equal cheap, although it may do. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

2 House moves, 8 years as a customer
10 minutes of downtime
How many others can say that !!!

But I'm leaving, sorry Zen your price is just to much of a premium now that the comp is catching up

Changed from BT to Zen for cost 12 months ago. Since then we have gone through 3 of their routers. Customer service (a term I use under advice) tells me as our contract has gone beyond 12 months if we want a new router we will have to pay for one. From them £109, direct from Thomson £78. Customer service, when this price difference is pointed out to them, say our service our price. OK, my money my choice get knotted. Now await the MAC code, maybe up to 10 days but as we have no service anyway there is nothing to lose. Bt have agreed to provide the same service at the same price. No choice is there? BT, welcome back.
Will never return to ZEN even if large amounts of money were offered.

I have been with Zen since 2008 so have by now some experience of the service. Having had dreadful speeds of between 100 and 500 kbps and severe traffic shaping at peak periods when I was with Virgin prior to joining Zen, broadband life has improved enormously with this ISP. Zen provides me with a steady download speed of 4400 kbps, despite my house being in rural Scotland. What is so important is that Zen has no traffic shaping. Moreover, you never have to wait long to reach their customer service, which I have had to call when I had problems with a router (not provided by them). They soon sorted that out. I pay about £18 a month for this superb service, which, incidentally, carries with it only a month's contractual bind. I call that a bargain.

Having been a Zen customer for a good 6+ years, I can say that I have received a not particularly special service from them lately compared to previous years.

I recently ordered an extra line at home including a broadband connection from them. Anyway, they sent me a Thomson TG585 v8 wireless modem router which I now know to be notorious failing often. When I noticed the connection was flaky I thought I would run through the obvious first (test socket, microfilters, different wireless channels, etc). I work full time so the process of elimination to quite a while especially when I though each time that I had solved the problem.

I work in technical support myself and didn’t want to call them until I had tried everything knowing they would just say “Well have you tried this…?” So after six weeks I called them and explained the problem which was now a real issue because I needed to work from home. They scratched their heads for three days and then suggested updating the firmware in the router which just left it unresponsive. I ran out of time and patience so went to Currys and purchased a Belkin modem router which I had up and running with a solid connection in under 20 minutes.

I put a call in to Zen the next day and requested a refund on the now redundant pre-configured router option that I went for when I placed the order only to be told that it was not possible as more than 14 days had passed. As a loyal customer with several active services I thought this was a bit of a cheek so then requested to raise a complaint only to be told that there was no point because I would be told the same thing.

So the moral of the story is don’t take the peace of mind easy life option that Zen offer because unlike other ISP’s they supply you with the cheapest nastiest crap hardware and then don’t give a hoot about customer satisfaction. They used to be great, now just average.