Again, a problem with a customers Internet Connection resulted in us as an IT company having to contact ZEN to go through the fault resolution process.

A quite simple procedure on our behalf to clarify there was nothing on the Network causing an issue with eating up the bandwidth was completed with good results, leaving the internet connection / phone line to be the only remaining suspect.

Over to Zen....

Zen Q.."Can you unplug everything and just leave the Router and one computer connected to the internet?"

Our A.. "No, they are a seven million pound turnover company with orders coming through online and it's the middle of the working day."

After several circular questions leading nowhere other than back to the beginning and a refusal from the technical support staff at ZEN to go beyond what was obviously not at fault, we asked to speak with someone more senior.

A slightly better result, within a few minutes they had actually managed to increase the speed to something more workable from the customers point of view, but still not great. This proving there wasn't, as we suspected anything wrong with the customers equipment, and upon further investigation discovered there was a contention issue at the local exchange.

However, for Openreach to diagnose it, we have to reconfigure the Router to log in using Openreach's test credentials, thus taking our client down for an hour or so, while Openreach obtain the information they need to fix the problem with their service.

Why, after all this time, and us advising ZEN that there was nothing wrong with the clients equipment or network, ZEN's refusal to believe the extensive knowledge of our own third line support engineers that were finally proven right, were we still left with all the work of testing, reconfiguring and so on, just to give Openreach the information they need to avoid ZEN having to pay Openreach to come out and actually fix the fault?

I don't believe it's just ZEN, we've dealt with them all and across the board they're all 'pretty much of a muchness', they all rely on Openreach's network, however they should take ownership of the problems and remove the pain from their customer.

Scenario.. Do ISP's really expect an elderly pensioner to remove the face plate of their phone point and plug the Router into the test socket? let alone even know what the master socket is? I've heard of one being asked!