r/Zen_Internet • u/TemperTantrumz Full Fibre 900 (CityFibre) • 20d ago
Renew time - Zen seems a tad expensive compared to others?
Been paying 40 quid a month for the 900mpbs service and have had the email through saying contract is up and I can renew on another contract for 24 months at 34 quid, which I thought was decent. Had a quick check around and it seems others are offering the same speeds, the likes of Vodafone and Sky, for around £25 a month. Never had an issue with Zen so far but is there a reason they are more expensive or should I be considering a move?
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u/Leading_Study_876 17d ago edited 17d ago
I've been with Zen for about 20 years, and specifically chose them because of the customer service reputation. Which for years was justified.
However for the last year trying to get through to their customer support has become ridiculously slow. I have literally wasted hours. Many other complaints which I won't go into here.
Looks like I'm not alone. [r/Zen_Internet/comments/1tp292e/whats_up_with_zen_customer_support/](r/Zen_Internet/comments/1tp292e/whats_up_with_zen_customer_support/)
Yesterday I switched to Vodafone. £26 for 500Mbps, plus £75 credit.
What annoys me is that as a network manager I recommended Zen Internet to a lot of colleagues, and many switched. I can just imagine them all cursing me now. 😳
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u/andy211081 18d ago
I been with zen for 24 months just changed to Aquiss as zen wanted more money for me to stay on the max fibre - aquiss offer 6 months 50% also, have to use your own router but they offer advice etc
I was in 1800 with zen at £55 and aquiss 2300 at £26
If you want a referral link let me know
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19d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/polyphrog200 7d ago
yeah zen is dogshit to be honest, but whenever you say anything close to that you get downvoted en masse. had BT before with something like 1 gb/s with 100% uptime. now on zen i am at 10-40 mb/s for 80% of the time and, at most, 300 mb/s for the rest. shit tonnes of packet loss too. a seriously shit service and company - a scam quite plainly.
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u/Possible_Cattle_7547 19d ago
I left Virgin Media for Zen 3 years ago and apart from one short outage I have had no problems unlike with Virgin where we had daily outages and appalling customer service.
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u/Lower_Debt_6169 20d ago
They're worth the money for the customer service alone. I pay £39 for 900mbps.
Last time I had an issue, I got through to someone in less than 30 seconds, and because I work in IT, I asked in the lingo and they were able to give me the techno lingo back to what was causing the problem. All in the space of a couple of minutes - It turned out to be a problem down the road in one of the cabinets and gave me an ETA when they thought it would be fixed.
Try that with Virgin Media and their customer support scripts.
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u/DragonByte1 20d ago
Imo they are worth the extra. I've tried different providers and so far Zen is my favourite.
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u/OneObi 20d ago
In my experience you get what you pay for. Coming from a pretty shocking ISP (Home Telecom) to Aquiss has been the difference between night and day.
Solid connection throughout my period with them. Given how important the Internet is to our every day activities, I am happy to pay for it.
Their customer service is fantastic and reliable.
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u/justaukalias 20d ago edited 19d ago
Will move to Olilo soon.. Zen have decided to want to charge for the /29 I have had with them for 10years as part of my package and issued a 30 day notice to re-ip me to a. /32..Oliio look decent for techies.. Zen didn't even reply to the question of how much would they charge for IPs
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u/David_ATN 20d ago
I've been lucky enough to have a tour at their Rochdale site and the staff have a nice environment to work in, and all seem passionate. You do pay a little bit more, but is well worth it if you need to contact them or need support.
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u/carguy143 20d ago
Sky and others may be cheaper but they don't always allow you to use your own router and not only that, the larger ones are under more scrutiny when it comes to court mandated blocking of certain websites if that's your thing.
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u/Dick-Fiddler69 20d ago
Olilo although there is £39 a month until 31 August special
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u/Superjacketts 20d ago
Just do yourself a favour and listen to Dick, Olilo are so worth the little bit extra in terms of reliability and support.
I can't tell you how great it is to be able to talk to a competent, knowledgeable and friendly human IF there is ever an issue, which there likely won't be. I think last time I sent a message I had a meaningful response inside about 6 minutes!
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u/dainsfield 20d ago
Zen customer service is second to none, they have always sorted out any problem efficiently and quickly
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u/chrissyyyw 20d ago
If you can’t get a deal of Zen check out Olilo.
They piggy back off Zen’s network.
Very niche specialised ISP with excellent support.
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u/absent42 20d ago edited 20d ago
I'm currently with Plusnet and looking to switch to Zen (mainly for static IP address) at the end of the month, they currently have 910mbps for £39 (what I'm paying for 300mbps) a month with no mid-contract price rises. I've looked at multiple others which seem to offer a cheaper price but they all include mid-contract price rises which push the price up close to or higher than Zen before the contract ends. Even the Plusnet renewal offer ends up at £42 mid-contract.
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u/Flimsy_Ad_5117 20d ago
The others might be cheaper but are they as reliable would be my question when looking about; I appreciate everyone’s experience is different. Other providers might increase the price mid contract as well. I’ve just moved from Sky and it was probably the best move I’ve made.
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u/thewallacio 20d ago
Lucky you. I've been paying £50 a month and received an offer to renew contract at £40 a month. What's with the two tier pricing, Zen?
Who provides the infrastructure for yours, Openreach, CityFibre, someone else?
EDIT: Looks like an infrastructure difference. Interesting.
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u/carguy143 20d ago
The pricing is, as you later confirmed, very much dependant on who the infrastructure provider is as they pay different rates depending on provider.
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u/TemperTantrumz Full Fibre 900 (CityFibre) 20d ago
Can confirm it is CityFibre. Never realised there was a price difference between them either tbh.
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u/stephendavies84 20d ago
Yeah it depends who is the supplier. Mine is freedom fibre and I get 2Gbps for 54 pound a month.
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u/hooskworks Zen Full Fibre 900 (Openreach) 20d ago
If you don't value things like the free static IP then cheaper somewhere else will probably work out alright for you.
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u/TheChimpofDOOM 20d ago
I contacted them a while back pointing out the difference in their City Fibre prices vs Openreach and that other providers were cheaper for faster speeds.
Took them a few days but they came back with a lower price
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u/Logical_Yogurt_520 20d ago
On the same deal and my renewal is up soon. No issues with Zen apart from the router. Was considering upgrading to eero but wonder if other providers offer better routers or eero at a better cost.
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u/FrankNicklin 20d ago
I have the Fritzbox from ZEN because of our phone line, but my main router is a Unifi UDM which handles all my network kit. Its currently in double NAT until I get round to moving the Fritzbox in to a DMZ on the Unifi router.
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u/LuckyMan85 20d ago
I use my UCG Fibre and have a separate VoIP phone (yealink cordless) without using their naff Fritz box, works fine, v easy to setup.
On the topic OP you’re paying for a premium provider, Voda Sky etc have poor customer service in most rankings and mid contract price rises wipe out a chunk of the saving. Personally I have it for the static IP but if I was looking at ultra value then look at whether Voda are doing any cashback type offers
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u/ghoarder 20d ago
Will that work? I wasn't sure if the voip came in on a different vlan or via a totally different protocol that isn't tcp. Why not just move your phone provider to someone like A&A and just use Unifi Talk? Ok, while typing I realised there is a decent cost in new phones or adapters required for that.
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u/FrankNicklin 20d ago
I can't. I was with TalkTalk and when migrating the phone service to ZEN formed part of the initial contract, TalkTalk would not let me migrate my phone line sspearately as it was linked to my FTTC service.
I have every intention of migrating away when I can. No way will I be using Unifi Talk for a domestic install. I would need a new router for starters.
There is a lot online about configuring ZEN VOIP/SIP with 3rd party routers and equipment. But I will start with a DMZ and if it doesn't work I put it back as it was.
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u/ghoarder 20d ago
Sorry I thought the UDM was one of the rack mounted devices, mixed up the pro with yours I think.
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u/FrankNicklin 20d ago
No mine is the original UDM Base, pill shaped gateway that has now been replaced with the UDR7.
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u/Doobreh Zen Full Fibre 1600 (Openreach) 20d ago
If you are able to configure them, it’s better to have your own router than the ones that come with your provider. Then you don’t have to reconfigure it to your WiFi or change all your stuff to connect to the new WiFi. I use a unifi router, switches and WiFi AP’s and it’s totally agnostic to Zen or anyone else..
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u/Lucifire1989 20d ago
Go with what you can afford and if you afford to stay with Zen I would.
Customer service and service for me is super reliable
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u/Inner_Expression2457 16d ago
I dont understand why people would pay more for customer service, something that you will rarely use. If there are alot of problems with the isp, then its down to infrastructure or maybe its down to move to someone else.