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G.fast with Zen

Netjet1980

Casual Member
Hello!

Since our home broadband contract with BT has expired, I am looking at an upgrade from our VDSL (73mbit) to g.fast.

We have a business line at the same address with 300Mbit g.fast already, which is supplied by BT Business and supplying the full 300mbit (we are only 100m away from the box).

The funny thing is, BT is only offering Fibre 100 at 148mbit as upgrade option (might be a delayed database update? When we had the business line put in they only showed it at 256, but after installation it was set to 300, which it is now showing on the BT business website under availability) and at quite a price increase at £56 (Sky is offering this at £35). So I started to look around and stumbled upon Zen, who are offering 160Mbit at 49.99 and 330Mbit at 59.99, which looks a lot better, especially with the fixed IP on top.

I hope existing Zen customers can give me a few pointers:

1.) How is your experience with support in case of line faults?

2.) How problematic is the switch from BT (I guess this all comes down to Openreach)?

3.) We are using a large multi-wan router (Draytek 3910) for our connection. What modem/router do Zen supply? Is it easy to use your own equipment (I have a spare Openreach G.fast modem here, so ideally would just connect this to our router)?
 
1) Zen support is excellent usually. Their tech bods actually know what they're doing and are all based round Manchester.
2) Switching from BT was a doddle.
3) Zen will give you a Fritz!box 7530. As pack-in routers go it is surprisingly good, but I've switched all my (FTTP) setup to Ubiquiti with no issues. Zen also gave me no issues when my line went down about using this kit and happily ran their diagnostics without the usual rigmarole of putting their kit back in.
 
Hmm I'd be interested to see if having two G.fast lines into the same property causes any performance problems. I know it supports vectoring to tackle cross-talk interference, but even so I do wonder if your 300Mbps G.fast line may lose a little speed when the 2nd line goes live. Since I've not seen anybody else with dual G.fast lines into the same home then there's no base for comparison.
 
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Yes, I was thinking the same at the start. I talked with an OR engineer about it, and he said, that he doubted that there would be any cross-talk on such a short line. So only one way to find out, in worst case might have to downgrade back to VDSL.
 
1. Zen support has always been very good with me.
2. Can’t comment, this was a brand new phone line.
3. I use a Netgear Orbi setup. Zen will try and help if you are using your own kit, but for troubleshooting you may be asked to plug in their Fritz box.
 
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