Leased Line with Zen
Discussion
About to move to a new office building and the Customer Service with Virgin seems to have gone to zero since the merger with o2. I've been asking for a price to install a 1Gbps leased line over a 1Gbps bearer for about 4 months now (had a leased line with Virgin Business at my existing premises for about 8 years) and can't get an answer so will be moving away from them.
Really impressed with the guy I've been speaking to at Zen, anyone had any experience of a leased line from them? Price is competitive.
Really impressed with the guy I've been speaking to at Zen, anyone had any experience of a leased line from them? Price is competitive.
Zen are a good ISP in my opinion, I've used them for years with business VDSL connections and always found them good to deal with.
What I found with leased lines though, when I ordered earlier this year, is that the ISP's are all over the place with huge variations in price.
So in my case I ended up with BTNet quoting about £700-800, TalkTalk about £500 and in the end went with a Sky leased line which was £335 for 1Gbps/1Gbps on 36 months. I don't even think I got a quote out of Zen.
I don't understand the variance in terms of price and availability even though the physical underlying connection is an Openreach EAD circuit in most cases.
I would use a good broker or MSP who can examine the whole market rather than focus on one or two choice ISPs
Also be mindful of lead times, I've been waiting 6 months now, the delay stems from the need for the local authority to authorise them putting up roadworks in several locations just to pull cable from one chamber to the next. Unfortunately one of them is in the very middle of a crossroads over a main trunk road so approval has been required from National Highways and its been kicked back month after month.
What I found with leased lines though, when I ordered earlier this year, is that the ISP's are all over the place with huge variations in price.
So in my case I ended up with BTNet quoting about £700-800, TalkTalk about £500 and in the end went with a Sky leased line which was £335 for 1Gbps/1Gbps on 36 months. I don't even think I got a quote out of Zen.
I don't understand the variance in terms of price and availability even though the physical underlying connection is an Openreach EAD circuit in most cases.
I would use a good broker or MSP who can examine the whole market rather than focus on one or two choice ISPs
Also be mindful of lead times, I've been waiting 6 months now, the delay stems from the need for the local authority to authorise them putting up roadworks in several locations just to pull cable from one chamber to the next. Unfortunately one of them is in the very middle of a crossroads over a main trunk road so approval has been required from National Highways and its been kicked back month after month.
Edited by theboss on Monday 5th September 15:05
Tyndall said:
I've been asking for a price to install a 1Gbps leased line over a 1Gbps bearer
Did you mean 10 Gb bearer? Or specifically 1 Gb? Zen have always been highly regarded based on people I know who deal with them but there are quite a few small ISPs about these days who use the BT infrastructure to provide leased lines. Worth a chat with people like cerberus to see what else is about.
somouk said:
Did you mean 10 Gb bearer? Or specifically 1 Gb?
Zen have always been highly regarded based on people I know who deal with them but there are quite a few small ISPs about these days who use the BT infrastructure to provide leased lines. Worth a chat with people like cerberus to see what else is about.
When I sought quotes it was something like thisZen have always been highly regarded based on people I know who deal with them but there are quite a few small ISPs about these days who use the BT infrastructure to provide leased lines. Worth a chat with people like cerberus to see what else is about.
1/1Gbps ~£350
1/10Gbps ~1200 but would provide 5/10Gbps for no extra
10/10Gbps ~1400
It seems if you're going to pay the extra for the higher line rate, you may as well use it.
somouk said:
Did you mean 10 Gb bearer? Or specifically 1 Gb?
Zen have always been highly regarded based on people I know who deal with them but there are quite a few small ISPs about these days who use the BT infrastructure to provide leased lines. Worth a chat with people like cerberus to see what else is about.
1Gbps bearer. 10Gbps ups price massively and while I move about 1TB a day, currently it's OK so happy to stick with 1 and install a 10 afresh as and when we really need it.Zen have always been highly regarded based on people I know who deal with them but there are quite a few small ISPs about these days who use the BT infrastructure to provide leased lines. Worth a chat with people like cerberus to see what else is about.
Tyndall said:
Thank you, useful stuff. Wildly varying prices as you say, BT virtually double "cos we have the best SLA"...
iambigred you don't seem to accept PMs
Apologies, PMs enabled now! Send me your postcode and I can do a quick check on what's available.iambigred you don't seem to accept PMs
theboss said:
When I sought quotes it was something like this
1/1Gbps ~£350
1/10Gbps ~1200 but would provide 5/10Gbps for no extra
10/10Gbps ~1400..
It entirely depends upon location, carrier/tail provider and zoning. In some areas you may find very good pricing (e.g. BT flexzones, or non-Openreach providers such as Cityfibre, ITS, etc can bring down costs) and a lot of our suppliers will price against competitors these days. You can find 1Gbps/1Gbps for £200pm in some areas.1/1Gbps ~£350
1/10Gbps ~1200 but would provide 5/10Gbps for no extra
10/10Gbps ~1400..
iambigred said:
It entirely depends upon location, carrier/tail provider and zoning. In some areas you may find very good pricing (e.g. BT flexzones, or non-Openreach providers such as Cityfibre, ITS, etc can bring down costs) and a lot of our suppliers will price against competitors these days. You can find 1Gbps/1Gbps for £200pm in some areas.
I'm guessing that would be in an urban or business park type setting where the area has already been flooded with fibre and there's massive amounts of exchange/backhaul capacity and competing networks? I'm in a small rural town setting with no other true fibre options although FTTP builds are on the horizon.I work in the industry, not really interested supplying this but happy to sanity check any quotes for you. As a very rough guide, £350/mth would be very cheap if it's delivered over an Openreach EAD circuit, £400-£600 a month would be more realistic for a 1Gbps Internet service delivered over an Ethernet fibre circuit with a 5 hour repair SLA. Those prices would be with the install costs amortised over a 3 year term. The cost differential will depend on the suppliers profit margin and the level of contention they are prepared to run on their network.
Zen are probably as good as anyone else really for commodity connectivity, they have presence in a lot of exchanges these days like the big players which should make their pricing pretty competitive if they are present in the local exchange. Their service is not as bespoke or expert as it used to be when they were smaller, but it'll be better than the big players like BT/Sky/TalkTalk/Voda etc. Your experience with VMO2 is typical for them these days.
Zen are probably as good as anyone else really for commodity connectivity, they have presence in a lot of exchanges these days like the big players which should make their pricing pretty competitive if they are present in the local exchange. Their service is not as bespoke or expert as it used to be when they were smaller, but it'll be better than the big players like BT/Sky/TalkTalk/Voda etc. Your experience with VMO2 is typical for them these days.
theboss said:
I'm guessing that would be in an urban or business park type setting where the area has already been flooded with fibre and there's massive amounts of exchange/backhaul capacity and competing networks? I'm in a small rural town setting with no other true fibre options although FTTP builds are on the horizon.
Depends entirely on the area. Shoot me across a postcode if you want me to check rough pricing, we have a tool that communicates with dozens of carriers availability APIs and compares availability and pricing instantly.Well I've been badly let down by Zen via OpenReach despite having placed the order in September. Due to infrastructure issues apparently this now can't be completed until June (in suburban London, not the middle of nowhere!!!), despite the original 70 day lead time. 9 months to get a leased line in!
Now paying rent/rates and everything that goes with it on two buildings as we can't move without the line.
Has anyone tried Community Fibre Business? They reckon they can get 5Gbps in to the building by the end of March at a very competitive price and say they use their own network so we won't have the Openreach issue
https://communityfibre.co.uk/business
Now paying rent/rates and everything that goes with it on two buildings as we can't move without the line.
Has anyone tried Community Fibre Business? They reckon they can get 5Gbps in to the building by the end of March at a very competitive price and say they use their own network so we won't have the Openreach issue
https://communityfibre.co.uk/business
Tyndall said:
Well I've been badly let down by Zen via OpenReach despite having placed the order in September. Due to infrastructure issues apparently this now can't be completed until June (in suburban London, not the middle of nowhere!!!), despite the original 70 day lead time. 9 months to get a leased line in!
Now paying rent/rates and everything that goes with it on two buildings as we can't move without the line.
Has anyone tried Community Fibre Business? They reckon they can get 5Gbps in to the building by the end of March at a very competitive price and say they use their own network so we won't have the Openreach issue
https://communityfibre.co.uk/business
That's fast broadband, if you're struggling to get your leased line in then thats probably a good move for now.Now paying rent/rates and everything that goes with it on two buildings as we can't move without the line.
Has anyone tried Community Fibre Business? They reckon they can get 5Gbps in to the building by the end of March at a very competitive price and say they use their own network so we won't have the Openreach issue
https://communityfibre.co.uk/business
Regarding your issues with installation, people often dont realise that there is a node network supplying leased line technology into premises. If the local node is already full it can cause long delays on delivery as the network will need upgrading. A bit like if you want more electricity and the sub station needs to be upgraded to provide it. First thing we always do when placing an order for a circuit is check node availability to determine the likelihood of a quikc turnaround. We've had installs take 18 months for clients!
Good luck.
Mine took 10 months. They seemed to go round in circles with the council and Highways agency about traffic management to access chambers one of which was situated in the middle of the A49.
One day in October I was walking up the lane at pub closing time and a few Openreach lads were pulling the fibre under floodlights… they had travelled 60 miles in two vans to get the job done under darkness… so after an 8 month delay it seemed traffic management wasn't really necessary after all, when the right minded people are given a night shift and told to get on with it.
In all likelihood the delays are all with getting the Openreach tail to your premises and would be the same with any other supplier commissioning the same. After putting up with the aggro and the delays I'm glad I persevered as now the fibre is in I can commission other services or upgrade to faster services in the future without any more infrastructure work.
The 5Gbps on an alternative network could be handy in any case, as if you continue to pursue the leased line order in the background you'll eventually end up with two relatively diverse connections (save for the shared ducts etc) which provides a reasonable degree of resilience.
One day in October I was walking up the lane at pub closing time and a few Openreach lads were pulling the fibre under floodlights… they had travelled 60 miles in two vans to get the job done under darkness… so after an 8 month delay it seemed traffic management wasn't really necessary after all, when the right minded people are given a night shift and told to get on with it.
In all likelihood the delays are all with getting the Openreach tail to your premises and would be the same with any other supplier commissioning the same. After putting up with the aggro and the delays I'm glad I persevered as now the fibre is in I can commission other services or upgrade to faster services in the future without any more infrastructure work.
The 5Gbps on an alternative network could be handy in any case, as if you continue to pursue the leased line order in the background you'll eventually end up with two relatively diverse connections (save for the shared ducts etc) which provides a reasonable degree of resilience.
Edited by theboss on Tuesday 7th February 14:15
Thanks both, very helpful.
Re checking node availability, all suppliers seem to say to me that until an order is placed they can't commission surveys to check these sorts of capacity issues. I had a surprise call from Openreach this afternoon advising they're coming next week to drill a new 5m duct in the carriageway, so I guess we'll wait and see what that brings!
Re checking node availability, all suppliers seem to say to me that until an order is placed they can't commission surveys to check these sorts of capacity issues. I had a surprise call from Openreach this afternoon advising they're coming next week to drill a new 5m duct in the carriageway, so I guess we'll wait and see what that brings!
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