Discussion
I’ve been with Zen for donkey’s years, since the days of copper. They’ve always been rock solid reliable, but not cheap. Now I’m paying £50/month for unlimited full fibre 300 inc digital voice, which is expensive. I can go for their 500 option for £2/month saving, but 300mb/s is fine for what I use it for - streaming movies and wfh.
However, so many cheaper options out there now, which include DV. Is it a case of “you get what you pay for”, or are the cheapie providers just as good these days?
However, so many cheaper options out there now, which include DV. Is it a case of “you get what you pay for”, or are the cheapie providers just as good these days?
I'm only paying £32pm for 300Mb with Zen - that's via Cityfibre though, so perhaps you're via Openreach or some other carrier ?
My view is that most ISPs are just fine until something breaks. In general Zen have a good reputation for sorting out technical issues which is why I went with them.
Some cheaper ISPs rely on CG-Nat, which can make it harder to do peer-peer gaming if that's important to you.
Alorotom said:
That seems pretty steep OP
I recently jumped to Plusnet on their 500mb service for £29/mth for 18mths … not sure what they charge for DV
In my offers it’s showing 900mb for only £7 more
It is steep, hence the thread - done that money go into quality of service, support etc? As I say, Zen have been rock solid for donkey’s years. Never had one do the cheaper equivalents, so nothing to compare to. I recently jumped to Plusnet on their 500mb service for £29/mth for 18mths … not sure what they charge for DV
In my offers it’s showing 900mb for only £7 more
ISPs, like everything else I guess is subject to individuals experience. On a different thread about fibre to the premises on here there was people advising how terrible Vodafone are yet, yet 7-8 months in I've had absolutely zero problems (on a CityFibre line). The cost without digital voice is £32 FTTP 500Mb.
5g? Outlay was around £200 for a GOOD router and external antennas on a pole (free router is indoor only, no external antenna connectors). I pay £19 a month inc, unlim, and that includes a free voice sim too. I get up to 750Mb down, peaks over 650 most tests. 50Mb up.
You do have to be up for rebooting your rooter here and there when it grabs 4g instead of 5g but I have mine on a timer plug to reboot at 7am every morning.
Overall its been astonishingly good. STill can't believe I can download a 100Gb file in less than 30 mins. Did a 10Gb file the other day whilst I popped to the loo for a pee, was finished when I was finished! :-)
You do have to be up for rebooting your rooter here and there when it grabs 4g instead of 5g but I have mine on a timer plug to reboot at 7am every morning.
Overall its been astonishingly good. STill can't believe I can download a 100Gb file in less than 30 mins. Did a 10Gb file the other day whilst I popped to the loo for a pee, was finished when I was finished! :-)
Len Clifton said:
It is steep, hence the thread - done that money go into quality of service, support etc? As I say, Zen have been rock solid for donkey’s years. Never had one do the cheaper equivalents, so nothing to compare to.
In the past 7years I have been with:BT - 3yrs as this was the agreement when the ONT was installed
TalkTalk - 2yrs
Sky - 2yrs
Plusnet - switched 2mths ago
I always put the provider supplied equipment into router-only mode and then use my own Eero mesh system for my wifi throughout my home
All have been totally faultless, zero downtime, zero issues, zero reasons to call support etc.
It’s been purely price based changes.
Given the network is the network and mostly provided by Openreach (in my case) I don’t see how there is much risk tbh.
Mr Pointy said:
It's the additional cost of DV that really pisses me off. Why do we have to pay extra just to retain the functionality we already have?
Way back you’d pay a tenner a month for an analogue line to deliver broadband. I don’t understand why you’d want a landline these days, I dropped it as soon as I could. Before zen I was on Vodafone for 18 months and it was fine but I didn’t have any problems, just did a quick web chat with support for my credentials to put in my own router.
Zen were great at dealing with Openreach and keeping me updated through the various works to get FTTP installed. They also have static ipv4 IP, a static ipv6 block and no carrier NAT. There are still other ISPs working on their ipv6 rollouts.
If it just keeps working, or you never have issues, then most likely won't see any difference. Probably only the customer service side that'd vary and a lot of issues would go back to openreach after initial triage.
With Zen personally as they're not too expensive, use standard tech (so not stuck with their kit) and I don't have threaten to cancel in order to get a reasonable price.
With Zen personally as they're not too expensive, use standard tech (so not stuck with their kit) and I don't have threaten to cancel in order to get a reasonable price.
Len Clifton said:
Just to conclude - I upgraded my service from 300 to 500 mb and stayed with Zen, for a small saving each month. Of course I can tell no difference and I think for most of us, basic 150 mb is plenty. Why anyone would bother going with 1 gb is beyond me.
I have 900 and don't have a wired device, so it's utterly pointless. In hindsight I should have got 300 and I'd not notice a difference! I use Zen as they have fantastic customer service (I used to use Plus.net before they sold out). I won't use a mainstream provider as the CS is awful, so happy to pay a little more.
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