Zen are the best ISP in the country by a mile.

I've been with Zen since 2002 and their customer service is excellent. The service people know their stuff and are very happy to go off script if you know what you are talking about. We had a very long discussion about PPPoE through powerline adapters into a Smoothwall firewall running on an ESXI server and pros and cons.

The staff are all UK based and work weekends as well.

Not cheap but excellent service do after 14 years I'm still with them.

I was tempted but in the end I went with PlusNet as they were offering up to 17Mbps Broadband free for 12 months just paying for line rental. I called them up and prepaid the line rental for 1 yr. Total cost for 1yr 192.87. It comes with a phone line I won't use as it's cheaper just using voip.

I see what you're saying, but Zen do all that too. I'd also argue that their network is one of the best in the country. It has full QoS throughout and business-class service. Don't forget also that AA use BT and TalkTalk to deliver their services; especially EFM. Zen also do this, but they also have LLU services in some areas which tie straight back to Zen's own network. In my opinion this makes Zen's service a far more appealing offering.

As I said in a previous post, Zen used to drop lines into fields, blocks of flats, etc, for me in 2 days. I never ever had a problem from Zen's side with any of them and if there ever was a problem they were all over BT. Usually though that was during the expedite so I never saw the issues.

It's their customer service in general, but when it comes to faults they are most likely market leaders. They used to monitor lines and let you know when you had a possible fault. When you had a fault, if the engineer did not turn up (which is common) they would be on the phone minutes after the missed appointment raising an escalation.... Also It's down to QOS on the network - they are mainly focused at the business market.

Use to work for an ISP back in the day - if you want a home service, then i would use Zen, but for business where a data connection is relied upon, i would have A&A as a back up to a leased line.

Err, I have fibre but it's FTTP not FTTC. There's many FTTC cabinets around my village but due to a bit of weirdness with the ordering we can't get FTTC not that it's a problem as I'd much rather have more consistent optical fibre.

Nope! That's one of the reasons I chose Zen. :smiley:

the best way to know when you have fibre is to check the box

I ask a bt man when we will get fibre he told me that the green box down the road will have a A4 sticker on it when fibre comes

the green box is quite big (1X1 meter ) and you probably walk past it 1000 times and not know what it was
but as soon as you do its easy to check

my green box is next to my sons school i would check it every day then suddenly out of the blue i see the sticker

I ordered fibre same day

As an ex Zen customer, I can also vouch for them. l believe they are still independent (not bought and ruined by BT, Sky or Talk Talk) as so many other have been. I left them as they are not LLU in my area otherwise I'd have stayed. It's disgusting that all the other once good ISP's were bought (F2s, F9/plusnet, Be, and many others) Ofcom has a measure of competition at any exchange, which some ISP's use to determine the price. This measure is totally irrelevant now as it still counts the BT / sky owned lot as separate. Ofcom are a waste of time and money as they only ever assist bt. it is due to Ofcom that Openreach was created and they are the biggest problem in the industry. completely unreachable, answerable to no-one and biased towards BT, they have destroyed our Telecom's network and competition.

​It's still a trial but they're allowing anyone who wants a range to have one.

Not really much point in it at the moment though.

I'm with Zen on their FTTC (what BT call Infinity) service. Is very good. And I get native IPv6 too. Highly recommended.

It may be that Zen's database is slightly out of date. I'd call them to check.

Best provider by far!

If you're not sure give Zen a call they are open until 8pm. I suspect Zen's website is correct!

I just checked and got the same thing too, when I was sure I wasn't in a fibre area! According to uSwitch postcode I can't get Virgin Fibre but can get Sky & BT upto 38mbps, but Zen saying I can get 70+. Who do I believe...

That's not true, the deal is available at all but a tiny number of exchanges that Zen class as "High Cost". (Typically these are Ofcom regulated Market A exchanges)

The deal IS available at exchanges without Zen LLU.

If you do an availability check on Zen's website it will show what products are available at your address. If the deal is not available its not shown.

Only exchanges with Zen LLU can get this deal. You can find out of your exchange has Zen LLU here: https://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search

you're 100000% right THE'RE THE WORST COMPANY IN THE UK

Another extremely satisfied and long term Zen user here. Hot

Thanks Neo.

Echo all the positive comments on here about Zen too. Been with them for a couple of years now and though not the cheapest they're by far the best ISP I've had.

Myself and Family been with Zen for years now, always been amazing with customer service and technical issues and with prices coming down to compete for market share with some of the larger providers it shows they must have heavily invested in infrastructure and staffing to support the kind of growth you get with offers such as this. Happily reinforces why I've stayed with them for so long.

I have zens fiber 2 and the speeds are great, you pay a bit more but its worth it for their customer service they pick up straight away and have better knowledge then most.

Yep - Zen may provide the service to BT only exchanges.

A&A must be the best, but Zen is a very close second - great price...

Please amend the post as not everyone can get this deal. I'm stuck with **** plus.net forevermore. Our exchange is BT only.

Very expensive!

Im paying £11 a month for BT infinity 38mb fibre, bt tv including sport, line rental and weekend calls. Granted thats after cashback but I have never had a problem with any utilities paying out.

Also good for those who use Kodi links, etc. Being a small provider Zen don't close stuff down quite as quickly or liberally.

Only for exchanges with Zen LLU. :disappointed:

17Mbps is a bit weedy isn't it? Would I be able to stream Bargain Hunt on the BBC iplayer?

Do they censor the Internet like the big ISPs do? Or do they also think they're in China?

Topcashback is only available on the Fibre products :smiley:

Great company and service

May be a good price for this company, but compared to current offers at Sky, BT and plusnet, this is VERY expensive....

Got to agree, but when it comes to usage for a family - Zen is the next best option... I am with Plusnet which were good, but now... no comment. I am with them for FTTC and i will stick with them, but once my contract is up for renewal i will move to their business products as they still have good support on the business products - Residential :/

You should always double check, after you notice work men on your street :smile:

Unfortunately we still do not have fibre optic cable or anything decent on our street. Stuck in the stone age...

Give them a ring. Mine jumped from £25 to £39 last month for phone and bb, rang up and got it reduced down to £22 with faster bb.

I am which always makes me wonder why one branch has good customer service and the other is so bad

but here is some things which hapend to me

when i rang plusnet with a problem i got through in less than 2 mins spoke to a english person the problem was fixed(in a single phone call) and i got some compo for the problem

when i was trying to leave bt i had to ring 6-7 times and even then i was not sure it worked and i cancelled my direct debit so they would call me for payment
when they called and i pointed out i had cancelled my account 6 weeks before they said they would call me back
but i just got a letter through the post saying the account was cancelled
when i was ringing bt each phone call took more than 30 mins just to speak to someone
then i would go to india spend the next 30 mins trying to get my message across only to to be passed to a english speaking person in the uk
have to repeat the process and each phone call was pushing at least one hour

and when the phone call was ended , i would get a email saying they cannot do what they agreed on the phone call so i would have to repeat the whole process

TopCashback £40.40

Never heard of total cashback , also £40 tcb

I've been with Zen since 2002 and their customer service is excellent. The service people know their stuff and are very happy to go off script if you know what you are talking about. We had a very long discussion about PPPoE through powerline adapters into a Smoothwall firewall running on an ESXI server and pros and cons.

The staff are all UK based and work weekends as well.

Not cheap but excellent service do after 14 years I'm still with them.

I was with zen for years, they were the amazing, never had any major issues, when BT cut through the line in my street, zen's customer service couldn't do enough for me.

I moved to sky when I moved house as they gave me fibre for free (gave us all sorts of deals we couldn't turn it down), its good when it works but it drops out so often. The new router they gave us overheats and they don't like to support you if you use a 3rd party one, its just a pain dealing with the customer service.

Moving again soon, will be back with Zen when I do.

I previously had ZEN Internet before going to BT (contract up in June :smile:) I will say ZEN as uttered in the posts above offered Rock Solid level of service and Customer Service was 2nd to none, I'll be moving back once the contract with BT is up.

HUKD

​You are aware that BT own Plusnet?

I had Zen for years until I moved onto Fibre, rock solid service and great customer service

Highly recommended if you cannot get "fibre" products AND like easy to talk to, UK based, customer support.

Great deal. Zen are probably the best ISP in the county. Not cheap but worth the money! Heat added.

Vodafone now do Broadband. Some really good deals for existing customers, and some cleaver router features as well.

Woah just signed up with 18 month contract with PlusNet. Would prefer to get this so going to use coming off period i think

looks good I will look later, heat from me

Almost every phone/broadband provider have increased their prices. Mine with Virgin Media has gone up from £16.50 in October to £28.50 now.(broadband only)

Just a word of warning DON'T GO WITH BT.

I did and we had 3 price rises in 4 months my bill went up by about £10 a month (at the time it was the only company offering fibre)

It was only after seeing a loop hole in the contract that I could without penalty

Now dont get me wrong I dont mind companies giving a price rise as along as it is within reason

but my bill went from £41 to £51 a month which is a big price rise

since then I went with plusnet

same internet same hardware (BT didnt come back for the hub so i still use it )

I pay less than £30
now i get download speed roughly 71m/s download and 18 m/s upload

but honestly i dont even think i need more than 40 megs so probably when my internet contract come to the end i will drop down and save another £5-£10

Great spot. Wish I didn't have to have the phone as well though.

Just followed the linky and under 'Check my line to see what I can get'. it says...


Which is news to me and gonna be news to other broadband providers too. Everyone else, BT included, tells me we can't get fibre where I am.

But if it IS right, I might go for this as I'm currently with Sky and they're pants imo.

Edit: WOW! It is right - it must have changed literally in the last couple of weeks as I checked it when the last BT offer was on hukd a few weeks ago and it told me I could get anything but the measly 2-4mbs speed.

Cheers OP - if I hadn't seen this deal and checked it I'd never have known!

Zen are the best ISP in the country by a mile.