UK ISP Zen Internet Start to Offer Self-Install FTTC Fibre Broadband

New customers who take one of Zen Internet’s superfast “fibre broadband” (FTTC) packages (e.g. Fibre 1, Unlimited Fibre 1, Unlimited Fibre 2 or Unlimited Fibre Office) can now also take a Self-Install (Plug’n’Play) option, which means that an Openreach engineer doesn’t need to enter your home in order to complete the setup.

The other good news is that Zen, unlike some ISPs, will also continue to give customers the option of having a Managed Install (includes an engineer visit) if they so wish. Otherwise Zen’s Home Fibre packages all come with a 12 month contract, a free wireless router (details at the bottom), Static IP addresses and no Traffic Management.

Prices for the entry-level Fibre 1 (38Mbps) package with 50GB of usage costs £19.50 per month, plus £30 activation (one-off) and phone line rental must also be taken from £16.99 per month. The next package adds unlimited usage via a price of £27 per month, while going to a faster speed of up to 76Mbps pushes this to £30 per month (note: activation on this deal is free).

David Barber, Zen’s Senior Product Manager, said:

“At our Annual Partner Event in November, partners talked about wanting more flexibility and choice around how their services are delivered. Since then we’ve been working on a number of ideas to make life easier for them, one of which is Self-Install.

Opting for Self-Install removes all reliance on third parties to successfully get a next-generation broadband customer connected. That’s welcome news for many, who often feel the pain of engineer visits and missed appointments.”

Subscribers to the service will also gain access to a free wireless router (Technicolor TG589vn v3), which tends to retail for around £50 and includes an integrated ADSL2 + VDSL2 (FTTC) modem, a single USB 2.0 port, 802.11n WiFi at 2.4GHz, four 100Mbps Ethernet LAN ports and an integrated SPI firewall (note there’s a £6.95 delivery charge). Sadly there’s no Gigabit LAN or 5GHz WiFi, but at least it’s IPv6 ready.