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Goodbye Zen after 7+ years

I've used Zen for 7+ years (with a break in the middle when other half had BT business line provided by her work).

Earlier this year I noticed I was on "up to" 8MB broadband so asked for and got a free upgrade to 16MB. I also took advantage of their phone service as I would rather not pay anything to BT due to the terrible service I've had from them over the years.

Since the upgrade I've had constant problems with the line dropping. I had actually cancelled and decided to give another provider a try, but I was provided to stay on with a bigger download limit (which I need) and promise of a priority call from support.

Long story short, getting "support" for my issue is worse than trying to get the STASI to mend your internet connection. Their definition of "support" is to bombard you with more and more questions about what you have done to investigate, including (and I am not making this up) demands to know the dates when did them!

I sympathise that Zen are terrified of BT blaming me and or them for the problem. However, I need a reliable internet connection and I don't have the infinite time and resources they seem to expect me to expend on trying to sort it out. I have lots of hobbies - mucking about with extreme ADSL diagnostics isn't one (BTW I have already spent a lot of time on checking the wiring and trying different routers, filters etc, all to no avail)

With a (very) heavy heart, I've asked for a new BT line - then at least everything will be "baselined" and I can start afresh.

Zen have shot themselves in the foot - the one month contract was what attracted me as I knew I could leave as soon as they became hopeless - and I thought that would mean they'd be keen not to be rubbish, and that worked fine for some time, but their "support" for my issue has been the reverse.
 
ADSL2+ is a lot more touch to noise on the line than ADSL1 can you post your routers line stats so we can see if there are any underlying problems.

Is the new line being place while the old line is still live?
 
Hi Johne,

Sorry for the experience you have had, could you PM me your username please so I can have a look in to this for you.

Lee
 
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Kits - I have been using a free prog (ironically indirectly recommended by Zen) to monitor the stats over time - the line will run at 9726 Kpbs or thereabouts which I'm quite happy with and a noise margin of 7-8 db, but when the crackles appear (I can hear them doing a quiet line test), the noise margin fluctuates wildly (I've had minus figures) and eventually the router appears to give up and reset the connection.

Here are some recent stats

System Up Time 10:20:28
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN PPPoA 5907 7374 0 623 3284 00:26:37
LAN 100M/Full 777780 603600 0 27801 1884 10:20:24
WLAN 54M 48982 16147 0 563 62 10:20:14

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 9726 kbps 999 kbps
Line Attenuation 29 db 9 db
Noise Margin 4 db 6 db

Current router is a Netgear DG834G v2 - but I was using a v4 of the same router on which I'd upgraded to the latest firmware - if anything that was worse.

Don't have the second line yet but it's due to be installed early next month.
 
Last edited:
Lee

In desperation I called to report my crackling line as a voice issue - the guy I spoke to was very helpful and then we had that knowing conversation in which he suggested I might be trying to wangle a engineer visit based on my Googling "how do I get an engineer to visit". I told him he'd got me bang to rights (he had) but my Google skills were rubbish as I'd had to have a night's sleep and a go at a quiet line test to make me think of approaching it differently.

Upshot is apparently the evil empire that everyone seems so afraid of have been summoned and are due to visit.

As I explained to the chap today, I may be bang to rights on the wiring issue - none of my sockets appears to be a BT master - they are all the old style extension ones, but I have tried using the one that is closest to the entry point of my overhead line - although it's not easy to isolate the rest from this one since you can't just remove the faceplate :-)

There's a large part of the wiring (50+ feet at least) that runs through my loft and Lord only knows what is up there, I can't even trace where it is. The guy who had this place before had the entire garage electrics including an electric door and electric gates running off a 13 amp plug hidden behind some kitchen units so anything's possible.

If that proves to be the case (and assuming it can be sorted out) I will cheerfully pay BT for "my" error.

Really appreciate the offer, but I guess I should wait now and see what the engineer visit turns up.
 
Hi John,

If you do need any assistance or feel that the fault is not progressing as it should please don't hesitate to drop me a PM with your details and I will gladly look over it and help where I can.

Lee
 
Lee - much appreciated, BT Engineer came (after one false start which was entirely my fault, and I'm paying for) and I now have a shiny new NTe5 socket, so we can (and have) eliminated my wiring as the cause. Still getting line drops, but not as frequent, and I am getting help from tech support now.
 
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Used to think Zen Internet was pretty much the best provider around, certainly have never experienced any real issues with either the standard broadband or the fibre internet I have startedm, I am nearish to the exchange by a town centre and get great speeds, Zen are a little more expensive than many other providers but perhaps with their usual faultless services it could even be worth paying this premium. However I was stung by having them cut my internet off because I had overlooked paying for a domain name renewal that was tied to old debit card numbers and my old address, they couldn't get the payment or contact me (not that I was avoiding them or anything) so they thought right, cut off the internet and that'll get him to call. Strangely they must have known my new details to be able to do that, so why didn't get my new phone number and address from that to try and get the domain renewal payment of £11 instead they cut off the internet. To me that is totally unacceptable and now for this reason alone when I can get out my contract I will be moving to someone else, and I will never register domains and get hosting with them again thanks to their choice to abuse the power of also being my ISP and trying to use this to force me to pay for these services instead of either letting it lapse or go through other routes as other companies would have had to have done, them not having their power to cut off my internet.
Shame on you, Zen!
 
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