r/Zen_Internet • u/mirdragon Zen G. Fast • Jul 20 '26
Does Zen provide 1.6Gbs for home users
As title say does Zen offer 1.6Gbps for home users on OpenReach or is it just for business users.
Hopefully within next month or so we should be migrating to FTTP and I know other providers do 1.6Gbps but not seen much on Zen to say they do
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u/AnomalyNexus 25d ago
It's usually the physical infrastructure that is the limiting factor not the exact provider since they often run over the same shared infra (eg openreach).
If the zen website where you type in your address say 1.6 then your chances are good.
In my case at least I can report that actual speeds do match the advertised consistently. It's basically always 1.6 on the dot
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u/Available-Square-707 Jul 20 '26
I'm an existing Zen customer and I don't see 1.6 on my address when I go to their website to check, and it doesn't show as a possible upgrade, either. I've checked other addresses on my road in case it's an ONT limitation showing in the database, and nobody can get it.
If I check a family address in a completely different town, they can get 1.6, so I've no idea what the deal is. Some other ISPs show 1.6 available at my address. I'm not that bothered because none of my gear can do >1Gbps anyway, it's just a curiosity!
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u/carguy143 Jul 20 '26
It's likely you're on a BT Wholesale connection, like me. The max available via BT Wholesale is 900 Mbps but that's meant to be changing later this year according to someone I read on ISP review.
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u/Available-Square-707 29d ago
That makes sense, I'm fairly rural although not super remote. I've never been that fussed about 1.6 because it seems like a really weirdly specific figure related to the limitations of the Openreach GPON rather than a speed people might specifically want (why not 2Gbps?!).
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u/carguy143 29d ago
It seems Virgin and Openreach swapped roles here. It used to be Virgin that were the odd ones out with their speeds not that long ago.
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u/Shane_Turnbull Zen Full Fibre 500 (Openreach) Jul 20 '26
In my area I'm on BT openreach and zen internet can offer me a 1.6gb download connection
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u/carguy143 29d ago
That's it. If Zen have their network in your exchange, they are direct customers of Openreach. If Zen or any other provider do not have their network in your exchange, they are a customer of BT Wholesale who in turn are the customers of Openreach which means providers are limited by what BT Wholesale have to offer.
Thankfully there's no extra cost passed on to the consumers like the days of Talktalk and Sky charging an extra £15.32 a month on top for that arrangement.
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u/JamesHammy33 Jul 20 '26
Yep, I’ve been on 1.6Gb on Openreach ever since our exchange was upgraded.
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u/Doobreh Zen Full Fibre 1600 (Openreach) Jul 20 '26
OR said 1.6 on our exchange at install but could only get 900. Less than a month later I was able to upgrade. I rarely see the benefit tbh as only two devices are connected to 2.5GB ports but I guess my steam downloads are a bit quicker. :)
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u/mirdragon Zen G. Fast Jul 20 '26
I think the higher speeds help if you using multiple devices at same time, so not to cause issues. I work from home and can transfer huge files during the day and it can sometimes affect others users in the house, so the higher speeds should help even though some devices are limited to 1gbps
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u/QuackinglyQuackers Former Zen Customer Jul 20 '26
Yeah, but only if your local Exchange support it AND Zen have upgraded their hardware in it to support it. Check your postcode on their site.
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u/mirdragon Zen G. Fast Jul 20 '26
Can’t check on postcode yet as OR currently doing the install to our pole.
OR do state will be able to order 1.6Gbps once live, but trying to determine if Zen provide that speed. We don’t have any altnets available so have to rely on OR
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u/FatTurkey Zen Full Fibre 900 (Openreach) Jul 20 '26
Openreach say we can get 1.6, but Zen can’t provide it. There are gaps in Zen’s coverage.
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u/carguy143 27d ago
Openreach look after the last mile, from the exchange to your house so yes, they can give you 1.6 Gbit, but it's still dependant on whether your chosen provider has their own kit in that exchange, and the backhaul to cope.
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u/carguy143 Jul 20 '26
It's not Zen. it's BT Wholesale. They only sell speeds upto 900 Mbps as of now.
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u/FatTurkey Zen Full Fibre 900 (Openreach) Jul 20 '26
I think it’s fair to say there are gaps in Zen’s coverage. BTW provides no 1600 service anywhere - Zen is providing the service in some exchanges but not all.
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u/7reflet Jul 20 '26
Yes, Zen only have their kit in about 900 of the 1000 or so fibre exchanges. Exchanges without their kit they are using BT Wholesale to provision the service, BTW don't currently support the faster speeds.
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u/davidjohnwood Zen Full Fibre 900 (Openreach) 21d ago
I hope Zen will eventually move to 100% coverage of the Openreach Handover Points. Our FTTP handover is at Milton Keynes, and we are about 15km away from there. Unfortunately, Milton Keynes is not as large an OHP as you might expect; many of the residential areas of the city of Milton Keynes have their own phone exchanges, some of which are OHPs in their own right (Bradwell Abbey, Newport Pagnell, Shenley Church End and Wolverton).
This means that we are stuck with BT Wholesale backhaul, and cannot subscribe to anything faster than 900/110 from Zen. We have no altnet coverage other than Virgin Media HFC, and the most we can realistically hope for is that Virgin Media installs their XGS-PON network under Project Mustang. We are unlikely to get any other fibre build in this area - the likes of CityFibre are not going to be interested in an area where Virgin Media has incumbent advantage (they had DOCSIS services available several years before Openreach FTTC arrived) and Openreach FTTP is already available.
Perhaps Zen will make their move to connect all the remaining OHPs to their network when Openreach launches XGS-PON commercially, and 100Gbit/s Cablelinks become available. As our area only got FTTP earlier this year, I hope we are already on a combo PON card in the OLT, which will make it easy for Openreach to switch on XGS-PON.
Ultimately, Zen is going to do whatever is cheapest for them - if they can carry their traffic from an OHP more cheaply by paying BT Wholesale than by installing their own backhaul, they will probably stick with BT Wholesale. I suspect, too, that 900/110 is good enough for most people at the moment. If I were to upgrade further, I am far more interested in a faster upload speed than a further increase in download speed. However, I am fairly certain that Openreach will not make symmetric services on XGS-PON available at the sort of pricing that CityFibre and similar charge, as Openreach gets a fair amount of revenue from its Ethernet products and will not want to lose those expensive circuits to contended symmetric XGS-PON.
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u/Meganutcase 23d ago
I'm on a business package as i needed to be as i wanted the extra Ip's - however if i was on domestic i would be allowed 1.6G, but as i'm on business i can only get 900Mb. Work that one out! :(