Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => FTTC and FTTP Issues => Topic started by: Jasonkruys on June 09, 2023, 08:56:15 AM
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Hi All,
Hi all, I'm hoping someone with more intimate knowledge of the OpenReach setup might be able to give me some insight. Zen have been working with Openreach for 2 weeks now to try and resolve, and in that time I've wasted two days waiting in for OR that didn't turn up because they tried 'remote' fixes without telling me, and a 2 hour engineer visit that hasn't fixed it.
Service: FTTP 1000/110
Issue: Frequent (sometimes for hours at a time) crashing of download speed to <500kb/s to the point where it appears I have no service. Upload seems largely unaffected. Prior to that I have had nearly a year of perfect service.
The issue has been seen on:
My Own router,
Zen's FritzBox router,
A Laptop directly connected to the ONT initiating the PPPoE connection.
The original ONT
A new ONT (changed at the 3rd, actually attended, OR visit)[/li][/list]
Over the last 2 weeks the following has been done:
Zen have re-routed me on their network to rule out a known compatibility issue
Open Reach have applied various 'undisclosed' network fixes/adjustments - hence the two wasted days in waiting for them
An engineer attended, saw the issue, and through initially 1st line, then 2nd line:
Performed Multiple tests from the Operations Team that showed OK
Applied Multiple 'undisclosed' network adjustments
Light levels OK at ONT (17.7)
Light levels reported ok by remote ops team across the whole circuit and at my ONT (17.7 and 20)
SSFP test run - showing OK at 940Mb/s at the port - where does this test terminate? Is it the exchange?
Circuit delete and rebuild
ONT Swap in the house
Re-spliced fibre at CSP (just in case - it looked OK)
CBT and Splitter checked for 'disturbance' (they are 10m from my CSP in an under-pavement capsule next to each other) - no issues seen.
Following continued issues, OR have again checked light levels across the network and "performed a series of resets across each part to clear off any congestion or unseen issues" - still no change.
Using the TBB BQM, it shows Packet-loss of up to 10% (according to the scale) that correlate directly with the periods of extremely low speeds - suggesting (in my mind) a data/electronic problem, rather than a fibre/light problem. The intermittent packet-loss started at exactly the point where I started seeing issues, with a completely clean graph before then. So far, OR seem unwilling to consider there is defective/failing hardware anywhere, and repeatedly apply 'soft' fixes to no effect. As far as I know, no-one has even been to the exchange yet..
Anyone with any insight? @Black Sheep?
The SSFP test that was run reported 940Mb/s at a time where the OR engineer and myself were seeing <20Mb/s at the ONT in the house - where does the OR SSFP test terminate, and what is between that and my ONT? Presumably the test does not terminate at the ONT? Given upload seems to be largely unaffected, is there a component of the network that comes AFTER the SSFP test termination point, AND has a different circuit (even on the same card?) to the Upload path?
I've provided all data I have on speeds (testing by CLI and plotting with Grafana every 15 mins to see if there was a pattern), and the packet-loss indications from the TBB BQM to Zen, and to be fair they have been excellent in checking in with me, keeping me informed and pursuing this - but so far 2 weeks and no progress! There appears to be no pattern to the drops - does not correlate with Peak times, Heat/weather - it has been awful since 0415 this morning so far peaking at 20Mb/s, but as low at 349kb/s.
My background is data-comms, mostly wireless, but I do have experience fault finding 'mobile' trunk communications that also have fibre links. Not that OR or anyone puts any stock in my thoughts, my nature is to use testing and data points to narrow down - hence my interest in the exact set-up at the exchange.
Apart from some of the things that happened whilst the engineer was here, feedback from OR on what they have actually done/tried is very hard to come by. The last email I got suggested they may have run out of ideas, but I do believe that Zen will keep pushing it - they have been great.
Any insight, even for my own curiosity, would be great. Thanks.
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Hi Jason,
Bogof's sixteen page thread may be a good place to start:
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,27091.0.html
I will confirm I'm currently using a Gamma BT Wholesale 1000/115 FTTP connection, and do not see the same problems you are facing.
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Hi Jason,
Bogof's sixteen page thread may be a good place to start:
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,27091.0.html
I will confirm I'm currently using a Gamma BT Wholesale 1000/115 FTTP connection, and do not see the same problems you are facing.
Good grief. Just looked and Zen performed a GEA migration on 24th May, can't be a co-incidence. I've just pointed that out to Zen with a quick email.
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If you check your stats/graphs/BQM etc, does it correlate with 24/5?
I would expect your would see a change in latency on BQM at the point it was migrated.
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Yes, all issues started at precisely 0400 on the 24th.
From that point the BQM graphs are showing packetloss that matches exactly with periods of slow or No download on my 15 minute testing - most obviously and notably during the 2 hour periods of <500kb/s. Before the initial spike in packetloss at 0400 on the 24th all was clean. Ping, jitter also all over the place both on the BQM plot and my own internal 'outogoing' tests since that point, and as a I've, Openreach have tried literally everything else (as above), it is difficult to ignore the one thing that has changed. I only remembered I had BQM set up yesterday, so hadn't investigated that until now, but every single data point I have across BQM, Other tests, and service seen in real life points back to 0400 on the 24th, and when I looked today, that is when a GEA migration had been fulfilled - it wasn't even on my radar.
Heard back from Zen, the fault manager I have been dealing with is going to try and get a migration back put in, despite the fact they think the new link is bigger, better, faster, more capacity, less congestion and testing OK.
I should add, Zen have been great so far in trying to resolve, so I've got my fingers crossed.
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it wasn't even on my radar.
A good job the kitz forum was on your radar to help find that missing piece of the puzzle :)
I should add, Zen have been great so far in trying to resolve, so I've got my fingers crossed.
From what I have read above, and it does turn out to be a Zen backhaul issue, its seems Zen have not been great, on the basis of how much time and effort yourself and OR have spent on finding a potential known issue with Zen network?
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A good job the kitz forum was on your radar to help find that missing piece of the puzzle :)
From what I have read above, and it does turn out to be a Zen backhaul issue, its seems Zen have not been great, on the basis of how much time and effort yourself and OR have spent on finding a potential known issue with Zen network?
Fair point on the Zen comment. My 'praise' was largely for the contact and keeping me updated. It is disappointing that this is clearly an issue seen before, but not once has been considered. When 'investigating', they must have noted the migration date co-incided with the issue starting.
Latest contact is they want to run more tests over the weekend - so after two weeks of their network team on the case, and Openreach apparently doing everything they possible can to resolve and basically saying 'not us', they want to leave me with a broken connection for at least another weekend. I have to say, my hope of resolving this is dwindling :(
I'm going to give it the weekend, but I've expressed my disappointment and asked them to advise how I can get authorisation to transfer out early.
So, next question is - who should I move to? Either if they don't resolve, or possibly when my contract is up? I really hope Zen resolve it, but my confidence has been severely knocked today - especially as this clearly an issue that they know about.
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Its especially weird that upload is unaffected given it would need faster downstream than that to achieve the upstream. Very unsettling to see Zen still having these major GEA issues.
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Its especially weird that upload is unaffected given it would need faster downstream than that to achieve the upstream. Very unsettling to see Zen still having these major GEA issues.
Indeed on both counts.
Are you on a Zen GEA?
It's a shame, because if they actually acknowledged the issue and put some effort into looking at the data - those on Zen GEA not affected, versus those that are, they might actually spot a trend that sets them on the path to solving it. Equally, customers with a bit of knowledge and the ability to provide objective measured data rather than 'it doesn't work' could help, but if they are guarded and make out it's not an issue and deny it, 1. They annoy good customers like myself (well I think I'm good anyway) and.2. they don't ever solve the problem.
As said, I'll see what they come back with. But my long and happy Zen custom is quickly turning sour. They're not even cheap - I picked Zen due to the lauded customer service, and ability to speak to a support team that weren't reading scripts from a different time zone.
I am still, perhaps naively, hoping they come through.
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No GEA here as Zen are not at my exchange, but that obviously could change at any time.
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My considered opinion was that Zen are a complete bunch of clowns or crooks with these FTTP GEA issues from my interactions with them. They had a great opportunity to try and get to the bottom of the issue with myself and other capable individuals at the end of the phone, yet they squander it and just annoy us to the point of leaving. My saga went on over the course of 4 months or so. You'd imagine this is only going to get worse with more takeup of FTTP, and yet no-one it seemed cared one jot really.
You could request they migrate you back to BT backhaul, which they don't like but can do. But note, even that doesn't seem guaranteed, as less than a month after migrating me back AND FIXING MY ISSUES they re-migrated me back to Zen backhaul with the issues instantly returning, apparently forgetting to set the flag to prevent migration. To add insult to injury, each time they migrated me in one direction or the other my authentication would break, too, and I'd have to call them to get them to put some more hay out for the hamsters...
I normally like to put such things down to incompetence rather than malice; but I'm not sure that they don't actually know what's going on, and instead they're just stringing folk along, particularly as I had one day on their network where I connected to some different hiterto unseen gateway which wasn't fully set up, and had no reverse DNS, that never appeared again and worked perfectly (perhaps better than Openreach). They denied all knowledge of it. Very smelly.
Good luck. My advice, run, don't walk, if you have the chance, unless you like having your time wasted. They're great at that.
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Its especially weird that upload is unaffected given it would need faster downstream than that to achieve the upstream. Very unsettling to see Zen still having these major GEA issues.
My upstream never seemed at all affected, but my downstream wasn't impacted anything like to the extreme the poor OP is facing, really tragic.
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My considered opinion was that Zen are a complete bunch of clowns or crooks with these FTTP GEA issues from my interactions with them. They had a great opportunity to try and get to the bottom of the issue with myself and other capable individuals at the end of the phone, yet they squander it and just annoy us to the point of leaving. My saga went on over the course of 4 months or so. You'd imagine this is only going to get worse with more takeup of FTTP, and yet no-one it seemed cared one jot really.
You could request they migrate you back to BT backhaul, which they don't like but can do. But note, even that doesn't seem guaranteed, as less than a month after migrating me back AND FIXING MY ISSUES they re-migrated me back to Zen backhaul with the issues instantly returning, apparently forgetting to set the flag to prevent migration. To add insult to injury, each time they migrated me in one direction or the other my authentication would break, too, and I'd have to call them to get them to put some more hay out for the hamsters...
I normally like to put such things down to incompetence rather than malice; but I'm not sure that they don't actually know what's going on, and instead they're just stringing folk along, particularly as I had one day on their network where I connected to some different hiterto unseen gateway which wasn't fully set up, and had no reverse DNS, that never appeared again and worked perfectly (perhaps better than Openreach). They denied all knowledge of it. Very smelly.
Good luck. My advice, run, don't walk, if you have the chance, unless you like having your time wasted. They're great at that.
Thanks, I am quickly coming to the same opinion, but lets see.
Who did you move to? My requirements are a static ipv4 address, ipv6 enabled, and a call centre/technical team/helpdesk I can have a reasonable conversation with that's not in a different time zone.
I was with Aquiss years ago on ADSL, looks to be an option? I assume they use BT/OR Wholesale links and don't piggy back off Zen...that would be just my luck.
I was tempted to look for a provider that doesn't use PPPoE (not Sky - their help desk is horrendous and who I moved from), but that just leaves talk talk? What is their customer service like?
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I moved to AAISP. Service is great; reassuringly expensive tho, and the quota setup is a bit annoying for me; I only really need 2TB / month so I go on 10 TB for a month and then onto 1TB for 2 months to save some pennies. Would be nice if you could just pay pro-rata between the 1 and 10TB option (or similar).
I also considered Cuckoo on Talk Talk Business network. 1 month exit clause. Still PPPoE though I understand (only retail TT is DHCP I think). In a way I wish I'd given them a go.
Best of luck. It would be nice if they just got this fixed once and for all...
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Thanks, I keep looking at AAISP but I worry about the cost/quota. Need to crunch some numbers. Cuckoo looks interesting - maybe I'll give that a go if I can get.out of contract if Zen won't resolve the issue.
I'm just so angry now that they've had me, Openreach and even members of their own team running about for two weeks for a known issue that 1. They didn't even consider in the first place, and 2. Seem to be refusing to accept even now every single data point proves it.
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Ha! Two Weeks! That's nothing...
I suppose there are a lot of possible points of failure; with Zen having their own equipment that has to be connected to and managed in each exchange, BTW having to make connections between the head end equipment our fibre connects to and the supplier network. BUT! No-one made Zen decide to go this route, there is a perfectly serviceable option available, and they don't really seem capable (or perhaps willing) to get to the bottom of these issues when they do crop up.
Mine wasn't anything like as bad as yours; I had a real struggle with them as my performance was teetering on / just over the edge of being acceptable. So I wouldn't like to bet it's exactly the same issue. There were a couple of folk over at Think Broadband forum whose speed issues were much more like yours. But there was a common thread of issues with their GEA network. It's quietened down for a while at TBB, so maybe they've managed to resolve most of these problems.
Re: getting out of contract; you can light a fire under them. You need to give them notice that you intend to leave under the terms of your contract and Ofcom Code of Practice owing to them not delivering advertised speeds; they then have 30 days to fix it or release you. This does seem to be a pathway you have to specifically request - once you are on this pathway a note appears in your account to indicate it and the effective date in question.
As my speeds were actually slightly marginal, I went for a bit of a different tact with them than the COP, which has very wide speed targets, and instead wrote:
"I would like this email to serve as formal notice that under your terms I judge that you have made a change to my service that is to my significant disadvantage in migrating me to the Zen GEA service. The change went through on xx/Jun (without notifying me, though I can see the order in the portal that you must have placed when migrating me). Please undo the changes made during the migration and return my connection to how it was pre-migration. If you are unable to undo the change, please take this as my notice of intent to end our agreement in no less than 30 days.
From your current retail terms:
"14.5 If we make a change that is to your significant disadvantage, you should notify us as soon as possible. If we are unable to undo that change, you may end our Agreement without penalty by giving us at least 30 days’ notice. Your notice must be given within 30 days’ of the changes being notified to you. You will not have to pay any charges for the remainder of any minimum period which may apply to the services.""
3 days after this and actual "FAULT RAISED" happened on my account.
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Haha, yes, I read your thread. What an unnecessarily long and drawn out debacle.
Yeah, indeed, if the service was marginal it would be less of an issue (still an issue none-the-less), but it is either OK or unusable, and up and down like a fiddler's elbow.
Whilst it is only 2 weeks, we've quickly got to the nub of the issue, and I honestly don't see how they can argue it. I bet they try though. Ultimately, they either fix whatever is causing the issue or move me back, and if they haven't fixed it or commit to move me back in the next couple of days I'll make every effort to get released.
Thanks for the steer on the contract.
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Good grief. Just looked and Zen performed a GEA migration on 24th May, can't be a co-incidence. I've just pointed that out to Zen with a quick email.
After reading your 1st post I was going to tell you to look for this in their control panel.
Zens GEA network seems to be absolutely useless for anything 500Mb/s and above.
Pretty much every slow speed post I've seen from a Zen customer on an Ultrafast FTTP product has seen their issues start upon the GEA migration.
Ask Zen to move you back on to BT Wholesale backhaul and the problems will disappear.
Failing that (if they refuse) then I would strongly recommend changing provider (to 1 that doesn't use Zen backhaul).
Zen have been trying to fix their issues relating to poor speed on their GEA network for many many months now. The Zen sub forum on Thinkbroadband.com is full of users with identical problems. They had a perfect service with full throughput 24/7 then overnight performance deteriorates. Each time the user has had a GEA migration on to Zens own network.
Here's just 1 of the threads with many customers with the exact same issue (https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/zen/f/4718211-re-slow-speed-after-gea-migration.html)
The only resolution for every customer was a migration back off the Zen GEA network (back to BT Wholesale usually) or changing provider. I've not seen a single example of Zen fixing things.
They have wasted days of your time with all these Openreach engineers. It's entirely down to Zens network.
The test the engineer ran terminates at the exchange, which is where Zen take over the connection from Openreach.
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Interestingly I'm on a Zen Wholesale service for my backup and it's fine.
Having read this thread I'll put some more telemetry on it.
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Is there any way of veryfying a migration back to the Wholesale GEA? Apart from a restoration of normal service?
I got excited this morning, had 6 hours of no issues from 0200, but it has just flopped again - 10Mb/s
Let's see what they say today - yesterday, I asked to be migrated back or allowed to move.
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Is there any way of veryfying a migration back to the Wholesale GEA? Apart from a restoration of normal service?
Do a trace route to 1.1.1.1, and see what you gateway is, I recall BTW backhaul used different Zen gateway IP addresses vs Zen backhaul, could have changed now though:
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,27091.msg456733.html#msg456733
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Do a trace route to 1.1.1.1, and see what you gateway is, I recall BTW backhaul used different Zen gateway IP addresses vs Zen backhaul, could have changed now though:
https://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,27091.msg456733.html#msg456733
Thanks, that seems to stack up. Currently using 51.148.77.141, meaning Zen backhaul.
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Interestingly I'm on a Zen Wholesale service for my backup and it's fine.
Having read this thread I'll put some more telemetry on it.
I don't think their problems were ever thought to be universal, as you'd expect given their size there would be a bit more outcry; but I think the reason to avoid seems to be that in the event you are affected they simply didn't seem to have effective routes to resolving these issues.
My link was mostly ok-ish, but many speed tests to many sites - even multithreaded - would top out at well below line rate (usually around 2/3rds or so). All resolved when switched back to BTW.
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Interestingly I'm on a Zen Wholesale service for my backup and it's fine.
Having read this thread I'll put some more telemetry on it.
That'll be interesting, what speed is your Zen Wholesale backup?
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Apologies if Ive missed something, but I dont seem to have seen any post that quotes time frames. Ive seen several posts saying that its sometimes ok, but sometimes its dreadful.. and others showing appalling speeds, but no mention I could see if the test was done at a specific time.
Are things worse in the evenings. What are things like at say 2am-5am? Is there any time of the day/night since the switch that things have been ok.
I'm trying to eliminate the possibility of them having under provisioned some of the cablelinks. When you have connections capable of up to 1Gbps, then it doesnt take a genius to work out a 10Gb cablelink could become saturated by several heavy users. I seem to recall something somewhere that Zen had ended up provisioned some users on a 1Gb link. Their network now is quite large and covers a large % of the country. I'd expect to see a lot more unhappy people if there was something wrong with the network configuration.
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Hi Kitz,
For me, it is completely random. I set up monitoring early (before I realised the probable cause) for exactly that reason - see whether there were trends during peak times, or during particularly hot periods of the day, or when it was raining, or indeed happening at the same time every day - none of the above. All over the place at any time.
One day, for example, I had 600kb/s from 00:00 to 04:00 BST, but full speed 09:00 - 11:00. No two days are the same.
Unlike bogofs, mine seems to very much be 'all or nothing'. Occasionally, I am blessed with 80Mb/s for half an hour or so, before dropping to less than 10Mb/s. Otherwise is is full speed, or less than 10Mb/s.
Zen are insistent the previous GEA issue has long been fixed, but thos fixes don't appear to be working on my line only. They are basically just ignoring me now and rolling out platitudes, apologies, and a promise they'll get to the bottom of it soon - last reply this morning. Perhaps I am being too patient.
That being said, things do appear to be improving. Gradually I seem to be getting slightly longer and longer periods or acceptable.performance, rather than it being very 'spiky' - it's more 'steppy' now :D
EDIT: Added 3 PNG's to better demonstrate some of the issues:
24 Hours on May 31st
24 Hours on Jun 02nd
Last 12 Hours
Other days are similar speeds in terms of min/max, but happening at completely different, and random times. As said, the last 12 hours has been the best day yet.. ::)
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Thanks for the reply. School holidays is another thing to look out for. However it does look a bit random. I wonder if Zen would tell you the cablelink capacity and how they monitor. isnt much if the head end exchange covers a wider area of several smaller exchanges. Sorry that I can't come up with any other suggestions :/
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Thanks Kitz. Yeah, random indeed - on Wednesday it is 3 weeks, so dodging the holidays as well. Also, would have to be pretty ropy planning if capacity was causing 4-600 kb/s for hours. Since I posted those charts, I've not had more than 30Mb/s this evening.
Zen is still plugging away at trying to understand it. I'm confident moving me back to BT Wholesale will fix it - issues started at exactly 0400 on the day the migration is showing as being fulfilled. Before that, clean as a whistle, and line speed without a single blip since August installation.
Difficult to get anything out of them now, but common theme is that the exchange equipment is showing no congestion, no errors, no discarded packets and everything looks ok. They've set up a ping from their end as of Friday, so I assume they're seeing the packet loss I'm seeing on the TBB BQM that exactly mirrors the poorest speed period, but I have no idea what tools they have to determine where the issue is - that appears to be where they are, they can see the overall issue, but can't fix it/work out what is happening.
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I just don't get how they are continuing to roll this out while constantly hitting the same problem. Surely at some point the brakes need pulling while they figure out what is wrong?
The only thing I can think of is this must hit customs randomly, there must be people on GEA where its working fine. Although the sceptic in me thinks its just due to the minority of people who would even notice the problem.
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I just don't get how they are continuing to roll this out while constantly hitting the same problem. Surely at some point the brakes need pulling while they figure out what is wrong?
The only thing I can think of is this must hit customs randomly, there must be people on GEA where its working fine. Although the sceptic in me thinks its just due to the minority of people who would even notice the problem.
I expect its looked at in a way of how many customers actually report the problem (who notices?), if its something like zero point something, which is probable, then its probably not going to stop the rollout of something that cuts their operating expenses. Sadly many ISPs now are reactive instead of proactive.
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I expect its looked at in a way of how many customers actually report the problem (who notices?), if its something like zero point something, which is probable, then its probably not going to stop the rollout of something that cuts their operating expenses. Sadly many ISPs now are reactive instead of proactive.
While I can understand to some extent the "roll it out and problem solve later" from their perspective, it could also bite them in the rear if it turns out to be a hardware problem.
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How you getting on @Jasonkruys?
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How you getting on @Jasonkruys?
I'd be interested to hear more about this too as, hopefully, fttp is in the next 12-18 months here and I am currently on Zen fttc and have been happy with Zen for over a decade. I am, however, concerned about the reports of issues of some users who have been put on to the GEA backhaul, as that may make me think twice about sticking with Zen when fttp comes.
I had the GEA migration on my 80-20 (full sync) fttc circuit in March 2022 and have had no issues, but these reports do concern me and if you could continue to share your experiences it would be greatly appreciated.
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How you getting on @Jasonkruys?
Still suffering. Still getting fobbed off, and since the GEA migration was pointed out, Comms have gone from being vaguely useful, to 'im still chasing the network team'. Fault is recorded on my account on 26th May - after 30 days I'll raise a formal complaint and try the Ofcom code of practice they've signed up to - after 30 days of not being able to access promised speeds and I should be able to exit. Hopefully I'm at an advantage in that my issue is not poor performance that is on the edge of the guarantee, but frequently virtually no connection at all.
Still naively hoping they might fix it or eventually concede and migrate me back.
In the space of a few weeks I've gone from being a Zen advocate recommending them all the time, to now saying avoid them at all costs.
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Still suffering. Still getting fobbed off, and since the GEA migration was pointed out, Comms have gone from being vaguely useful, to 'im still chasing the network team'. Fault is recorded on my account on 26th May - after 30 days I'll raise a formal complaint and try the Ofcom code of practice they've signed up to - after 30 days of not being able to access promised speeds and I should be able to exit. Hopefully I'm at an advantage in that my issue is not poor performance that is on the edge of the guarantee, but frequently virtually no connection at all.
Still naively hoping they might fix it or eventually concede and migrate me back.
In the space of a few weeks I've gone from being a Zen advocate recommending them all the time, to now saying avoid them at all costs.
I'm sorry to hear that, but thank you for the update. I hope you don't mind, but I have a couple of questions:
Were you a Zen customer before having fttp?
If so, did your line get transferred to GEA when on fttc/g. Fast (or alternative) and then BT backhaul for fttp when it was installed and then GEA as mentioned in the thread?
Apologies for hijacking the thread a little, but I'm echoing your views on Zen and going from an advocate to bring very concerned and thinking I should research alternatives.
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I'm sorry to hear that, but thank you for the update. I hope you don't mind, but I have a couple of questions:
Were you a Zen customer before having fttp?
If so, did your line get transferred to GEA when on fttc/g. Fast (or alternative) and then BT backhaul for fttp when it was installed and then GEA as mentioned in the thread?
Apologies for hijacking the thread a little, but I'm echoing your views on Zen and going from an advocate to bring very concerned and thinking I should research alternatives.
Hi, no problem.
Yes, I was a very happy customer with Zen prior to FTTP on an FTTC service. Yes, I did have a GEA Migration when on FTTC - no issues. Switched to FTTP in August and have had a faultless connection on the wholesale GEA, until 24th May when I then had a Zen GEA migration on FTTP.
It does seem it is only FTTP connections >500Mb/s that are seeing issues, and apparently not all of them or you'd expect a lot more fuss.
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Interestingly I'm on a Zen Wholesale service for my backup and it's fine.
Having read this thread I'll put some more telemetry on it.
Is this a 550Mb or 1Gb package?
I recall previously you describing your backup as being 330Mb (though that was probably a couple years ago)
I just spent about an hour reading through the Zen sub forum on Thinkbroadband and it's a genuine struggle to find a single user who's able to get consistent full throughput on Zen GEA on 550Mb or 1Gb.
Lower tiers seem unaffected.
Usually when someone posts a specific issue like this there's the odd "my line is fine" post but all I see is a whole ocean worth of "me too". For most users it's a considerable overnight degradation coinciding with a GEA migration order showing in the control panel.
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I recall on the bogoff thread, the issue was some users (maybe specific to locality/exchange) experienced poor speedtest performance some of the time, especially with single thread speedtests.
A while ago I suggested it could be due to LAG of ethernet ports. I am by no means a network expert, so this may all be rubbish.
Could Zen be using LAG with mixed speed ports at some exchanges, to provide redundancy and higher aggregate speed, eg mixing 1Gb and 10Gb links? I did a quick google and this seems possible (by default) on Nokia equipment, so I assume is on other types of equipment.
If you are connected to one of these exchanges and you do a single thread speed test you may be unlucky and the path is down a 1Gb link, as it cant be split across multiple ethernet connections of different speeds.
However, when you do a multi thread speed test and/or maxing out your connection with multiple IP connections to different destination IP addresses, some traffic could be on a 1Gb and some on a 10Gb physical connection, so you would see better overall performance, as you are utilizing multiple paths, both 1Gb and 10Gb.
So if the exchange does have mixed speed LAG, and you are on that exchange trying a single thread speedtest, you may not see the results you were expecting?
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Could Zen be using LAG with mixed speed ports at some exchanges, to provide redundancy and higher aggregate speed, eg mixing 1Gb and 10Gb links? I did a quick google and this seems possible (by default) on Nokia equipment, so I assume is on other types of equipment.
If you are connected to one of these exchanges and you do a single thread speed test you may be unlucky and the path is down a 1Gb link, as it cant be split across multiple ethernet connections of different speeds.
I'm not sure how much value there is speculating in how they might have it set up badly, if it were a simple "switch flip" you'd expect their network operations team would have worked it out by now...
For what it's worth, my speed tests were mostly "poor" (550-700Mbps on a 900Mbps connection) even with multi-threaded speed tests to most sites, with only a few sites being line rate. On the BTW network the vast majority of sites would be at line rate with the same test, with only a handful of less capable sites performing poorly.
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Agree with Bogof. My situation appears much worse - at the worst periods, it's as if I have no connection at all the speed is so bad - irrespective of what I am trying to do. Whilst the theory seems sound (And I believe it is Nokia kit in my exchange following the Openreach visit), I can't see it causing that big of an issue - including up to 20% packetloss on the TBB BQM that started following migration, and coincides with the abysmal performance. In the last 'non-update' I got, there was a hint there was a 'group of customers' that had the issue, although they can't work out what it is.
For example, in one of the 'Poor' periods a couple of weeks ago, I was achieving 600kb/s on multiple multi-threaded speed test sites, including speediest.net (Zens server, Swift, and others), TBB Multi-threaded, Fast.com, Netflix inbuilt speed test. The 'Connection test' in the Zen control panel wouldn't even run it was so bad! This was consistently the case for 4 hours, with multiple re-connections to try and change the route. Indeed, I did see the lag-1 change to lag-2 on the second hop past the gateway, and it made no difference.
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I had frustrating calls with Zen where they'd tell me their Speedtest.net server wasn't to be trusted. I hired a fast AWS instance and benchmarked it at almost 10G up/down...! Go figure...
You might want to see next time it breaks if any site is OK. I had much better results on Voicehost Norwich than Zen's own server, for instance, when it was playing up.
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I had frustrating calls with Zen where they'd tell me their Speedtest.net server wasn't to be trusted. I hired a fast AWS instance and benchmarked it at almost 10G up/down...! Go figure...
You might want to see next time it breaks if any site is OK. I had much better results on Voicehost Norwich than Zen's own server, for instance, when it was playing up.
It's broken 2/3rds of the day, and no sites are OK. Apologies, thought I'd made that clear previously. Just used Zen as one example in response to the previous reply. When I say nothing works, I really mean nothing works - can barely get to BBC, Sky TV guide sketchy, Kitz not accessible. As said before, the issue was never I'm not getting.good speeds on a speed test, it was my internet is broken and nothing works - the speed test data came later as a way to characterise the issue and what times of day it happens - I hoped there was a pattern, but there is not!
For example, on my mobile data currently, as page loads on Kitz are cripplingly slow and it is impossible to reply. Out of all 9 servers I just tried on speediest.net, fast.com, TBB broadband test, waveform speed/buffer bloat test, the fastest was fast.com at 649 kbp/s. All of them were between 400 and 649.
Complaint email sent to Zen Saturday. Thus far, completely ignored.
Update yesterday from the Tech Core Support - Hope you are well, the NOC are working with Openreach to try and fix the problem.
Marvellous...
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Update yesterday from the Tech Core Support - Hope you are well, the NOC are working with Openreach to try and fix the problem.
Marvellous...
On the plus side, at least they're trying. But given the past reports of this, if its the same problem, I'm sure not optimistic.
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On the plus side, at least they're trying. But given the past reports of this, if its the same problem, I'm sure not optimistic.
Are they trying? Or are they just saying we are working on it, we'll let you know?
4 weeks now, and the same reply - we are working on it, and we'll let you know as soon as we have anything. If they haven't worked it out in 4 weeks (plus however long with all the other cases!), I'd say there is no chance they will.
My email to complaints on Saturday has so far not seen a response - does anyone know what the usual acknowledgement time is?
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Well, your issue is worse than every other case so, hopefully?
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Well, your issue is worse than every other case so, hopefully?
It's worse than mine, but there was I'm sure one poster at TBB whose performance sounded like the OPs.
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Have Zen's engineers been able to make any progress with this?
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(https://media0.giphy.com/media/l3vR2Dr1As9J002T6/giphy.gif)
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Alex's assessment is accurate. No progress, still fobbing me off. Have said they've replaced all their kit in the exchange, and now trying to convince Openreach to do the same to theirs - they are now saying they believe the issue is in the OR Layer 2 switches and routing to the headend.
I've sent an email to complaints which was ignored, then when I chased it I got a reply from the Fault manager at the tech support address, so it has gone to them and basically been ignored. They said they'd address it after the issue is resolved, or they could ask their manager to escalate.it now. I asked for it to be escalated, and nothing.
Genuinely, I am now telling everyone not to touch Zen with a barge pole. I appreciate that issues happen, but 1. How you deal with it is important, and 2. This seems to be a fundamental problem.
I don't know how to progress this now. Every route I am being ignored.
Edit: Last 6 hours plot attached for interest.
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Have said they've replaced all their kit in the exchange,
I fear this is true as its the only explanation of why Zen have never been able to figure this out after so long and why they have been able to do absolutely nothing to fix it. Either that or there is some fundamental bug in the vendors equipment Zen are using that is incompatible with what OR are using.
You'd think Zen would be taking legal action against OR if it is indeed a problem their side that is not being dealt with.
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Still no progress. Complaints not being escalated by the fault team, and no update for 5 days now. Have chased and just get a 'we've had no update'. I have never had a more frustrating experience in my life. It's like they are not even reading the emails, and picking a reply from a selection of standard 'sorry' replies. Last 6 hours attached for interest.
I posted on twitter, they quickly responded saying DM is and we'll look into it ASAP, and that's been ignored now too >:(
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Zen have finally contacted me this morning and offered a migration back, or end contract. They've assured me if they migrate me back I won't be put back on the Zen GEA. It's just a shame it has taken being vocal on social media/review sites is what it has taken to break from the cycle of fobbing me off.
Perhaps foolishly, I've agreed to give them a second chance and agreed to go back onto wholesale GEA - I've been happy with the service up to this debacle, including a few issues previously that were resolved quickly and efficiently. I've been assured I won't get put back, but if I do, calling out this case number will get much quicker action next time.
Up to 10 days to enact the migration - let's see.
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Zen have finally contacted me this morning and offered a migration back, or end contract. They've assured me if they migrate me back I won't be put back on the Zen GEA. It's just a shame it has taken being vocal on social media/review sites is what it has taken to break from the cycle of fobbing me off.
Perhaps foolishly, I've agreed to give them a second chance and agreed to go back onto wholesale GEA - I've been happy with the service up to this debacle, including a few issues previously that were resolved quickly and efficiently. I've been assured I won't get put back, but if I do, calling out this case number will get much quicker action next time.
Up to 10 days to enact the migration - let's see.
This makes me so sad. It effectively writes Zen and any of their wholesale customers off more or less forever until they can identify where these issues are coming from and why they're not going to happen again. Not because the performance isn't good for the majority - I'm sure it probably is - but because if you're unlucky you're going to have to basically jump through hoops for over a month before you maybe get a migration in 10 days time.
Even IF you gave Zen maximum benefit of the doubt - that the problem is with some piece of BTW equipment they are connected to - it shows they have a totally ineffective system in place for dealing with issues with their supplier, which ultimately makes their network service untenable.
There are so many things they could do if they were really interested to sort this. Eg ; they could provision a second BTW service at your home via the FTTP system and provide a multi-port ONT, leaving your bad connection running while probably getting you a good connection, while carrying on working on fixing the issue with your current service.
I hope you get a good result. Bear in mind Zen ultimately are trying to get everyone off BTW and onto Zen GEA, so i think unless they fix the issue behind the scene, you will always have the Sword of Damocles dangling overhead. I was told that even if I was flagged for not being migrated, that eventually I would be.
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Agreed. It leaves me pondering what I will do when City Fibre roll out here, stay with Zen or move to AAISP. Because while this problem does not appear to impact City Fibre (as its their own backhaul to Zen), its still concerning that their network is this fragile.
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Zen have finally contacted me this morning and offered a migration back, or end contract. They've assured me if they migrate me back I won't be put back on the Zen GEA. It's just a shame it has taken being vocal on social media/review sites is what it has taken to break from the cycle of fobbing me off.
Perhaps foolishly, I've agreed to give them a second chance and agreed to go back onto wholesale GEA - I've been happy with the service up to this debacle, including a few issues previously that were resolved quickly and efficiently. I've been assured I won't get put back, but if I do, calling out this case number will get much quicker action next time.
Up to 10 days to enact the migration - let's see.
Thank you for the continuing updates and I will follow this case with great interest.
Like you were, I am a very happy Zen FTTC customer and I've been a Zen customer since leaving Eclipse over 15 years ago. I've had the GEA migration on my FTTC line and there are no issues, but I have been very concerned about the individual cases of significant issues when using Zen's GEA after a switch to FTTP.
I'm hopeful of getting FTTP in the next 12 months here and I was wavering over sticking with Zen, but now I'm thinking I might have to find a bit of extra cash each month to go to someone like AAISP as Zen's approach to dealing with customers with issues after a FTTP GEA migration leaves a great deal to be desired in my opinion. I am aware that there are probably many Zen FTTP customers who don't have an issue, but for some peace of mind I am becoming less sure that I can risk it.
I also wonder at what point Zen GEA takes over your connection? In my case, my local exchange (SSBCL) doesn't have a ZEN LLU presence, so would I be correct in assuming that Zen takes over at a point further down the line (probably SSCMN in my case as there is Zen LLU there and I would imagine that is where my traffic is routed) as I am not quite sure how this kind of thing works?
Please can you let us know how this develops?
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Will do. Migration request gone in, now I wait until they put me back onto Wholesale GEA. In the mean time it is still just as bad as ever. They'll probably take the full 10 days >:(
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Will do. Migration request gone in, now I wait until they put me back onto Wholesale GEA. In the mean time it is still just as bad as ever. They'll probably take the full 10 days >:(
Finger's crossed it does the trick for you.
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I really hope this finally resolves the matter for you :fingers:
>> now trying to convince Openreach to do the same to theirs
It does seem weird that it only seems to be affecting Zen, and not just only at one location.
In some ways it has a weird almost congestion type feel to it. Ive seen many situations where the ISP/SP has said no congestion but that did indeed turn out to be the case. Way way to the dawn of adsl, > 2Mbps > maxdsl... and then the Plusnet congestion at the BTw MSILs. That one dragged on for best part of a year and was a trigger to them moving from shared to dedicated WBMC and I'd been saying from early on I suspected the BTw MSILs. BTw/Openreach isnt always very good at spotting congestion. Just saying monitoring isnt always effective.
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Plusnet were a nightmare for some time, between that and them pioneering traffic shaping which was outright broken for me - it used to throttle my Usenet 24/7 when it was supposed to only kick in after a given amount of data per month. Was a big reason I left them at the time, given they were my first ISP as I could pay cash on hand as I was unable to get a debit card back then.
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For those following, an update with no update.
Still waiting for the reverse migration - have chased them today as today will be the 12th day since they put the request on the system. Perhaps they meant 10 working days......
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AFAIK its always working days when dealing with any business.
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AFAIK its always working days when dealing with any business.
Fair, but they would normally say working days. Either way, not long now (hopefully) :fingers: - clearly they are running it down to the wire! :lol:
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Fair, but they would normally say working days. Either way, not long now (hopefully) :fingers: - clearly they are running it down to the wire! :lol:
I'd be shocked if the official line is not "Openreach normally do this within 10 working days", its not like time frames are ever set in stone. I'm more curious if they will remember to tag the line to not be migrated again.
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I'd be shocked if the official line is not "Openreach normally do this within 10 working days", its not like time frames are ever set in stone. I'm more curious if they will remember to tag the line to not be migrated again.
You and me both. Maybe I should run a sweepstake on how long it will be before a migration takes me back. Winner gets a packet of digestives or something :D
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Maybe you have briefly been migrated back to BT wholesale already, but then 'accidently' automatically migrated back again to Zen back haul.
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Maybe you have briefly been migrated back to BT wholesale already, but then 'accidently' automatically migrated back again to Zen back haul.
That would be cruel. I got at least 3 weeks... :)
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2 weeks / 10 working days later - they've done something, because I've not had any internet since 2am. Now need to wait until they are open to get through to them :-\
I've got a fibre link, but failing authentication. This is ridiculous. How can they secretly, and seamlessly (not withstanding the following issues) perform a migration from Wholesale to Zen GEA with no fuss, not a whimper, no downtime but make such a massive meal of doing it the other way?
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I think this i read about this in one of the other similar cases, when you get switched back something related to the authentication changes and you will need Zen to sort it out for you.
Hopefully this is a good sign that your awful experience is shortly coming to an end.
Best of luck for when technical services opens :)
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So far so good. After 45 mins this morning with Tech support, and then Orders I was back online by 0915. Apparently OR had marked it complete in one system/portal, but not the other, so Zen had to 'nudge' them.
Apart from 2 minor blips early on, I have seen consistent speeds all day >850Mb/s. The longest I ever had on the Zen GEA was a few hours every now and then, with periods of hours at <100Mb/s, or even <5Mb/s.
Packet loss as seen on the TBB BQM has vanished.
Ping has increased from 6ms on the Zen GEA to around 9-10ms on Wholesale but that's fine - I can finally use the internet again!
For interest/comparison Purposes - see attached my plot for the last 48Hours on the Zen GEA - absolutely abysmal.
Sunday/Monday I will post up 48 hours back on Wholesale to compare - my hopes are high - let's hope it sticks!
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I'm delighted to hear that you are seeing a better quality of service now you are off Zen Gea and I hope that it continues.
I'm sure Zen have lots of satisfied customers on their fttp Gea product, but there have now been enough of these examples to frighten me off and I'll probably go with aaisp if/when fttp becomes available here as whilst I've been very happy with zen for over a decade, they either don't seem to know how to fix this problem or the fix is so complex or expensive that they won't fix it and I don't want to run the slight risk of ending up in the same predicament that you and a handful of other users have as a non functional connection for 4-6 weeks would significantly impact my work.
Thank you so much for the updates and l hope that this will be a permanent fix for you.
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2 weeks / 10 working days later - they've done something, because I've not had any internet since 2am. Now need to wait until they are open to get through to them :-\
I've got a fibre link, but failing authentication. This is ridiculous. How can they secretly, and seamlessly (not withstanding the following issues) perform a migration from Wholesale to Zen GEA with no fuss, not a whimper, no downtime but make such a massive meal of doing it the other way?
Standard. Happened to me both migrations after the initial migration, in both directions (Zen -> BTW and BTW -> Zen). Zen have systems held together with wet string. They have separate login systems for the authentication and they have to move your login from one to the other is what I understand.
Good luck! Glad you are back up to speed now though. Long may it continue.
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Standard. Happened to me both migrations after the initial migration, in both directions (Zen -> BTW and BTW -> Zen). Zen have systems held together with wet string. They have separate login systems for the authentication and they have to move your login from one to the other is what I understand.
Which is utterly bizarre, as isn't the whole point of sticking with PPP in order to make authentication easier?
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Plusnet were a nightmare for some time, between that and them pioneering traffic shaping which was outright broken for me - it used to throttle my Usenet 24/7 when it was supposed to only kick in after a given amount of data per month.
What I was talking about wasn't an ISP at blame problem, the Ellacoyas had long gone. Congestion was at the BTw MSILs and PN did have sufficient capacity on their host links. That MSIL problem dragged on for months with BTw denying there was an issue. Personally Ive had far more problems with BTw congestion than I ever have had with PN. My post was saying that BTw/Openreach weren't always on the ball when it comes to monitoring for congestion.
I'm not quite sure how it would work though if there was some sort of issue on the BTw side before handover to Zen at the L2 switches, there will obviously be different routing and paths. I dont think Im explaining it very well but the Zen pipes are likely going to be smaller than the BTw pipes... and we all know that even if the contention ratio is exactly the same, the smaller the pipe then any sign of congestion is far less forgiving. Whatever, there is something going wrong. It's scattered nationwide but doesnt affect all of them. BTw let PN carry the can for months when the problem was actually congestion at their side. I think Zen need to keep pushing Openreach for answers because its nots doing their reputation any good.
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@Jasonkeys
Congrats on the successful migration back. \o/
I do hope that Zen dont think this is fully resolved though as theres still other cases that are rumbling away in the background. Whilst it may have sorted your problem for now. What ever it is that is causing it hasnt really been fully resolved and could rear its head again for other customers.
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@Jasonkeys
Congrats on the successful migration back. \o/
I do hope that Zen dont think this is fully resolved though as theres still other cases that are rumbling away in the background. Whilst it may have sorted your problem for now. What ever it is that is causing it hasnt really been fully resolved and could rear its head again for other customers.
Be interesting to know if it has behaved over the weekend.
I think whatever may be the technical reasons behind it, the saddest bit is that Zen seem ineffective in getting them resolved; here we have close to 2 months elapsed. It seems frankly ludicrous, though I'm fully aware that's the way it is, as I had even longer with my line (albeit it wasn't as broken as the OP's). It seems almost unfathomable that these issues are isolated to a single user at a given exchange, so while it's "good" that eventually people who complain enough manage to get migrated off, the general "smell" is terrible.
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Be interesting to know if it has behaved over the weekend.
I think whatever may be the technical reasons behind it, the saddest bit is that Zen seem ineffective in getting them resolved; here we have close to 2 months elapsed. It seems frankly ludicrous, though I'm fully aware that's the way it is, as I had even longer with my line (albeit it wasn't as broken as the OP's). It seems almost unfathomable that these issues are isolated to a single user at a given exchange, so while it's "good" that eventually people who complain enough manage to get migrated off, the general "smell" is terrible.
It has been absolutely perfect - not a hitch. A minimum of 840Mb/s recorded on any one of my automated speedtests, which have been running every 15 mins since the issues started. See attached plot - The single two blips at the beginning, including the one at about 170Mb/s was me loading my connection with the excitement of being able to use it again. As you can see, since then it has been spot on - last 48 hour plot attached for comparison to the last 48hours on the Zen GEA on my post Friday
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Pretty damning indictment then. Would love to know what's driving these issues that keep cropping up.
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What I was talking about wasn't an ISP at blame problem, the Ellacoyas had long gone. Congestion was at the BTw MSILs and PN did have sufficient capacity on their host links. That MSIL problem dragged on for months with BTw denying there was an issue. Personally Ive had far more problems with BTw congestion than I ever have had with PN. My post was saying that BTw/Openreach weren't always on the ball when it comes to monitoring for congestion.
I'm not quite sure how it would work though if there was some sort of issue on the BTw side before handover to Zen at the L2 switches, there will obviously be different routing and paths. I dont think Im explaining it very well but the Zen pipes are likely going to be smaller than the BTw pipes... and we all know that even if the contention ratio is exactly the same, the smaller the pipe then any sign of congestion is far less forgiving. Whatever, there is something going wrong. It's scattered nationwide but doesnt affect all of them. BTw let PN carry the can for months when the problem was actually congestion at their side. I think Zen need to keep pushing Openreach for answers because its nots doing their reputation any good.
I remember that issue and was a big reason you made a informational page on it.
When I moved from TTB to BTw on AAISP I immediately noticed a unexplained performance loss, a significant drop not something minor, but because BTw were been stubborn (insisted on doing NTE5 checks for a BTw network problem) I knew it was going to drag out so thats when I started looking at other solutions and ended up moving off the DSL platform. To be fair I am not sure was specifically congestion as the problem was around the clock (although worse at peak), but perhaps another example of BTw monitoring not been adequate. My theory was something amiss on the GEA link in the exchange, but they just refused to check it.
Of course BTw are not alone in this area, VM have had lots of historical issues of saying there is no utilisation issue and turns out to be one, and I expect is other providers with these issues as well, Zen of course potentially one with this topic.
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What I was talking about wasn't an ISP at blame problem, the Ellacoyas had long gone. Congestion was at the BTw MSILs and PN did have sufficient capacity on their host links. That MSIL problem dragged on for months with BTw denying there was an issue. Personally Ive had far more problems with BTw congestion than I ever have had with PN. My post was saying that BTw/Openreach weren't always on the ball when it comes to monitoring for congestion.
Was this different to the regularly having to reconnect PPP to get off a congested link? Was my understanding that was normal for BTW back in the day as there was no way to intelligently balance those backhaul links.
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Was this different to the regularly having to reconnect PPP to get off a congested link? Was my understanding that was normal for BTW back in the day as there was no way to intelligently balance those backhaul links.
It was related to a product BTw have where can use a shared part of the BTw network with other isps who use the same product, on this product BTw manages capacity on behalf of the customer (the ISP), this is different to what what BT retail use (which is dedicated BTw).
WBC is intended as a replacement for DataStream which is when a service provider rented a Virtual Path from the DSLAM backhaul to the ISPs PoP. Often the amount of VP bandwidth rented on each DSLAM was insufficient and congestion would be common. With WBC, BTw is still responsible for backhaul routing between the exchange and the AP, and therefore should be more resilient against contention than the old Datastream product.
WBMC - Shared (Aggregated)
Wholesale Broadband Managed Connect (WBMC) is a product aimed at small to medium sized ISPs /CPs for whom it would be economically unviable to purchase their own MSILs.
WBMC is transported over the MPLS core which is owned & managed by BTw and presented to the ISP as single 10 Mbps - 1Gbps host link. 10Gbps host links are also planned for the future.
With WBMC it is BT Wholesale who is responsible for managing and purchasing the AP, EP and MSIL which is then shared by multiple ISPs and charged accordingly.
https://kitz.co.uk/adsl/wbc_wbmc.htm
The BTw shared part got congested and initially people were assuming the problem was at plusnet's end.
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As I understand it BT Wholesale ran out of ports on their kit in exchanges and suddenly had to replace chassis and line cards to upgrade capacity. They seemed to miss this requirement in their capacity planning for a time and were unable to keep ahead of the capacity demands as this wasn't just adding a new link to a LAG, it was quite a bit more involved.
They run exchanges in rings and did try to balance traffic by splitting it across the two directions on the ring however in some exchanges they experienced congestion.
Not sure if there were national network issues but at the exchange and metro node level they certainly hit issues.
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It has been absolutely perfect - not a hitch. A minimum of 840Mb/s recorded on any one of my automated speedtests, which have been running every 15 mins since the issues started. See attached plot - The single two blips at the beginning, including the one at about 170Mb/s was me loading my connection with the excitement of being able to use it again. As you can see, since then it has been spot on - last 48 hour plot attached for comparison to the last 48hours on the Zen GEA on my post Friday
Have you been able to get Zen to confirm your account won't be migrated back by them to Zen GEA (ever?).
They told me mine shouldn't have been, but it was. It's worth getting them to confirm so you have a record.
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Have you been able to get Zen to confirm your account won't be migrated back by them to Zen GEA (ever?).
They told me mine shouldn't have been, but it was. It's worth getting them to confirm so you have a record.
They have said they have put a flag on my account, and they recognise it has gone wrong in the past - they said they have fixed that issue and it shouldn't happen again. If I do get migrated again, and instantly have issues, I'll be using my previous case number to push for an exit from contract.
A whole week later, and not a single blip...
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6 weeks is all it took :'(
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I'm absolutely gutted for you.
I think there was another case where an account was 'flagged' as never move to GEA, but that had no impact and it was moved anyway, but I can't be sure on that.
Surely, they need to let you out of your contract now as the evidence of the cause of the problem is abundantly clear.
Zen either don't know what is causing this issue for some users, or they do know and it is too expensive to fix.
I will certainly be moving away from them if/when FTTP comes my way, which will be a shame after many, many years of reliable service as I can't take the risk of being in this boat too.
Can i ask which ISPs you are considering if they let you migrate away?
Hope you get this sorted soon :-)
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I'm absolutely gutted for you.
I think there was another case where an account was 'flagged' as never move to GEA, but that had no impact and it was moved anyway, but I can't be sure on that.
Surely, they need to let you out of your contract now as the evidence of the cause of the problem is abundantly clear.
Zen either don't know what is causing this issue for some users, or they do know and it is too expensive to fix.
I will certainly be moving away from them if/when FTTP comes my way, which will be a shame after many, many years of reliable service as I can't take the risk of being in this boat too.
Can i ask which ISPs you are considering if they let you migrate away?
Hope you get this sorted soon :-)
You'd hope.so - I've sent in an email referencing the previous Case Number. Got frustrated waiting in the queue on the phone, and also anxious that I'd be going round in circles again - don't need that stress this morning!
I genuinely believe that they don't know what the cause is.
On the new provider, no idea. I naively stopped looking/thinking about it as all was well. Requirements would be - not on Zen GEA, a static IPv4 address and ideally IPv6 capability. Any new recommendations welcome!
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Zen got back to me swiftly enough - which is the kind of good service you expect from them, GEA related issues aside (annoyingly - on this one topic they are terrible, even on Comms). They cannot stop term fees being generated but will credit them if I move provider, as I shouldn't have been moved back onto their GEA.
Now...what to do. Welcome any steer from other Zen evacuees. As said, static IPv4 is a requirement, IPv6 desired. Fairly heavy user - around 5Tb a month on average.
I'm thinking just go with BT? I like the idea of dodging PPPoE if I'm moving, but I don't think there are any good options for that?
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Glad that Zen are being reasonable about this.
5GB per month isn't particularly heavy use, my 82 year old mother in law does more than that! - So i'm guessing you mean 5tb?
From the research I've done so far:
AAISP - if I am feeling rich and want to prioritize customer service and knowledgeable staff
Other options
Aquiss, IDNet, Uno
I couldn't handle the scipt readers at the big providers - not sure they meet all of your requirements though, but I will be following your case with interest
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Glad that Zen are being reasonable about this.
5GB per month isn't particularly heavy use, my 82 year old mother in law does more than that! - So i'm guessing you mean 5tb?
From the research I've done so far:
AAISP - if I am feeling rich and want to prioritize customer service and knowledgeable staff
Other options
Aquiss, IDNet, Uno
I couldn't handle the scipt readers at the big providers - not sure they meet all of your requirements though, but I will be following your case with interest
Yeah, script readers and the frustration that comes with it is why I moved from Sky in the first place.
AAISP seems the obvious choice from a customer service point of view, but it is a good 25 quid a month more expensive than everyone else with my usage.
Aquiss - I was with Martin/Aquiss years ago and the customer service was always OK, but got bitten by capacity issues on Entanet - all OK now?
I can't even believe I'm saying this, but TalkTalk residential is catching my eye - if only because it does not use PPPoE. It does, however, not have a static IP (which apparently talktalk think very few providers offer) and no IPv6.
Or Sky - seems to tick IPv6, no PPPoE, just no static. I could investigate Dynamic DNS with Cloudflare but not had much success in the past. Anyone think there is a reason not to go with Sky?
Grrrr..I can see I am going to spend many hours agonizing over this. Zen really were the sweet spot of all aspects, GEA nonsense aside!
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Only other suggestion i've got for you is unchainedisp as they use BT Wholesale backhaul for their FTTP, are a small outfit with decent support and a static IP, but they only seem to do a maximum of 550/75 as far as I can tell and you have gone for the 1 gig package with Zen.
Personally, I couldn't handle the poor level of support/understanding that you get with the frontline staff of the major players.
Keep us updated of how things go with Zen (have they moved you back off GEA again?) and where you end up next as it will help me in the future should FTTP ever be available as whilst my Zen FTTC line works great via GEA, I don't fancy taking the risk if/when FTTP becomes available.
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6 weeks is all it took :'(
Unbelievable. What a bunch of clowns. Chin up, you got two more weeks than I did!
I got assured they'd really, really mark my account not to get moved again if I gave them a 2nd chance, but once bitten...
I went to AAISP, has been exemplary. I'm a bit over 1TB a month, so I move to 10TB every 3 months, which keeps the cost down a bit. A bit annoying they don't do a more flexible billing system and I keep having to do that, but I'll live to save £90 a year... I don't think it would help you though, at 5TB/mo.
I don't think I'd consider objectively worse ISPs just to get rid of PPPoE - PPPoE is a solvable problem, a crap connection isn't. My Ubiquiti HW isn't brilliant at PPPoE, so I made a little OpenWRT box as an edge router just doing PPPoE. AAISP give you 8 IPV4 IPs if you ask for them, so I don't have to do double-NAT with such a setup (I just route one of the IPs through directly).
I understand Sky and TT to both have capacity issues in some areas meaning no 1000 services, my experience of providers not being able to resolve issues when their kit is in BT exchanges (Zen) says to me that if your line is a BT line you really are likely better off with a BTW based service, as it is bound to be the case, for right or wrong, that BT are more able to get issues resolved within their own group than 3rd parties are. NowTV in our exchange (Sky) seems to have had some pretty rough patches (looking at my parent's connection details).
So my advice would be find a BTW based supplier that ticks your boxes.
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Unbelievable. What a bunch of clowns. Chin up, you got two more weeks than I did!
I got assured they'd really, really mark my account not to get moved again if I gave them a 2nd chance, but once bitten...
I went to AAISP, has been exemplary. I'm a bit over 1TB a month, so I move to 10TB every 3 months, which keeps the cost down a bit. A bit annoying they don't do a more flexible billing system and I keep having to do that, but I'll live to save £90 a year... I don't think it would help you though, at 5TB/mo.
I don't think I'd consider objectively worse ISPs just to get rid of PPPoE - PPPoE is a solvable problem, a crap connection isn't. My Ubiquiti HW isn't brilliant at PPPoE, so I made a little OpenWRT box as an edge router just doing PPPoE. AAISP give you 8 IPV4 IPs if you ask for them, so I don't have to do double-NAT with such a setup (I just route one of the IPs through directly).
I understand Sky and TT to both have capacity issues in some areas meaning no 1000 services, my experience of providers not being able to resolve issues when their kit is in BT exchanges (Zen) says to me that if your line is a BT line you really are likely better off with a BTW based service, as it is bound to be the case, for right or wrong, that BT are more able to get issues resolved within their own group than 3rd parties are. NowTV in our exchange (Sky) seems to have had some pretty rough patches (looking at my parent's connection details).
So my advice would be find a BTW based supplier that ticks your boxes.
Thanks, that's a useful insight.
I got a call today from the core support/complaints team asking if they could spend 24 hours looking into why I was migrated again - so expecting the same chatter tomorrow that they super-promise with extra cherries on top it won't happen again. Given how the first 2 months of torture played out, and the repeated assurances they gave after I cited the multiple cases of a re-migration when I was deciding what to do, I'm not sure they really know what they're talking about. I'm sure if they give that chatter tomorrow they will actually believe it, even if they have absolutely no means of making it a reality.
Interested in learning a bit more about your setup if you don't mind? I run an OPNSense router doing all of my firewalling, routing, IDS, NGINX Proxy, and VPN duties, so having an 'unfiltered' Public IP address on the WAN of the appliance is necessary. I'd previously looked into using my previous OpenWRT loaded Asus R7800 in front of the OPNSense appliance, but concluded it was not possible. It seems I needed to run a 'half-bridge' to transparently pass the WAN IP to the OPNSense WAN, which OpenWRT cannot do on PPPoE (only PPPoA), as it terminates the PPPoE tunnel and thus gets the WAN IP. Are you saying that with AAISP and a block of 4/8 addresses I'll be able to terminate the PPPoE tunnel on the OpenWRT device and pass through one of those public IPS to the OPNsense appliance thus basically making the Asus device 'invisible'?
(Presumably the same is possible for IPv6)
Thanks
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I don't know about IPV6, but this is what I do on my OpenWRT box for IPV4. AAISP give you a single IPV4; plus yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy is the /29 block they gave me when I asked for it. The router gets the single public IP from AAISP that they originally assign when the PPPoE connection is set up. AAISP also route the /29 block over my connection. The below setup gives me a LAN connection on eth0 that I don't use but have for emergency use (which if you use, ends up routing places via the single public IP from AAISP). The router that is behind the OpenWRT box has a static IP in the yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy/29 range, and is connected to the PUBLIC interface. Any traffic that originates in that network looks to the world to have come from that static address, and not the single IP, and traceroutes out show the yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy address as a "hop" on the way out.
Yes, as far as I can tell it is fully unfiltered and just looks like any other static IP, I have a site to site VPN set up in the Ubiquiti stuff which depends on it.
This is running on a Lenovo SFF PC with a quad gigabit card.
config interface 'loopback'
option device 'lo'
option proto 'static'
option ipaddr '127.0.0.1'
option netmask '255.0.0.0'
config globals 'globals'
option ula_prefix 'xxxxx:xxxxx:xxxxx::/48'
option packet_steering '1'
config device
option name 'br-lan'
option type 'bridge'
list ports 'eth0'
config interface 'lan'
option device 'br-lan'
option proto 'static'
option ipaddr '192.168.1.1'
option netmask '255.255.255.0'
option ip6assign '60'
config interface 'wan'
option device 'eth1'
option proto 'pppoe'
option password 'xxxxxxxxxx'
option ipv6 '0'
option username 'xxxxx@a.1'
config interface 'public'
option proto 'static'
option device 'eth2'
list ipaddr 'yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy/29'
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That's interesting, as I can't for the life of me remember how Plusnet did it back in the day. I seem to recall though it wasn't like this, you didn't get the bonus PPP address as that would have been useful.
Maybe I'm mis-remembering it though, was a long long time ago.
Are you saying that with AAISP and a block of 4/8 addresses I'll be able to terminate the PPPoE tunnel on the OpenWRT device and pass through one of those public IPS to the OPNsense appliance thus basically making the Asus device 'invisible'?
(Presumably the same is possible for IPv6)
Thanks
Well yeah, that's how a router works. NAT is a fudge to share one public IP address across multiple clients, once you have a public IP range then you're in the realm of normal subnet routing so can route those IPs onwards as you would with any router on the open Internet.
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I think there is some kind of half-bridge way that you can set it up with some fake addresses that works with a single IP address (the eth port on the PPPoE handling router needs a fake address) , but I couldn't work it out, and it seemed that given AAISP had the option of the extra 8 IP addresses routed over the connection, that this was a really neat and clean way to do it.
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Yes I remember the HG612 supported that, there's instructions on here somewhere about it as I think someone got it working.
Of course the flaw with the AAISP way is its taking away precious IPv4 space.
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Yes I remember the HG612 supported that, there's instructions on here somewhere about it as I think someone got it working.
Of course the flaw with the AAISP way is its taking away precious IPv4 space.
I'm sure they have plenty... :)
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I hope you don't mind me asking, but how has this developed over the last week?
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I hope you don't mind me asking, but how has this developed over the last week?
Well...
Apparently Zen are very keen to resolve. Someone from the tech complaint team phoned me to offer huge apologies. Noted I'd already made the decision to leave, but asked if I would give them a day to find out what has happened. The ridiculousness of the original case probably helped. I decided I had nothing to lose, and I was interested how they could so monumentally screw it up repeatedly.
Long story short, they believe the issue is with Openreach or at least they need their help/engagement to fix it. Happening on very few lines which makes it difficult. No suggestion they would subject me to continued horror trying to resolve the GEA issue, but keen to get me back on wholesale and actually stop a future migration. There was a flag on my account, but if the flag is not noticed and the line not manually excluded from scope each time a migration script is run, then it will be migrated. However, they have confirmed with the NOC that there is a backend manual change that can be made on the actual system/line itself so even if the script is run, the line will report back 'nope, I'm not doing that until the year 2033' (or insert date here). Sounds like this is not something that is routinely done.
I'm still clear to leave if it all goes wrong, and they'll credit any term fees if I do, but given I have spoken to the exact same actual human several.times not reading from a script, who I think is genuinely horrified, and who has kept me up to speed honestly, and openly throughout, I have decided to chance it. He is going to touch base on the day of migration (next Friday - stuck with OR standard 10 day turnaround) check all is good, then ensure the backend change is made and confirm back.
Every now and then I think I'm mad, then I think that the GEA issue is the only problem I have with Zen. In selecting an alternative there has been a large compromise for all - cost if I want to be able to talk to someone that has half a clue what they're doing (AA), A naff call centre, or no static IP, or no IPv6 if I want to limit cost to similar to what I am paying. Annoyingly, GEA aside, Zen does seem to be the sweet spot for me.
I'll report back in 4-6 weeks :D
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Thank you for your detailed update it is greatly appreciated.
I won't even pretend to understand the technicalities of it all, but it does sound as if you have got to speak to someone at Zen who is being consistent with their information to you.
One thing I would have a concern over with what Zen are proposing is if you ever want to switch away from Zen in the future, would that type of transfer also get a 'nope I'm not doing that' style response and cause issues? - Of course, it might not work like that and I may just be showing my ignorance.
On another note, one of the ISPs i mentioned on the previous page, unchained, are now offering a 1gb line for £1 a month more than Zen and are guaranteeing a BT Wholesale backhaul and I think they have all of the features that you are looking for - so you might want to keep that information in your 'back pocket' in case it all goes pear shaped with Zen again.
I bet the 10 days to another remigration are really dragging, but I hope that you will have this all sorted soon and your case will act as a beacon of hope to other Zen users and Zen have finally realised that this doesn't work for some users.
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Thank you for your detailed update it is greatly appreciated.
I won't even pretend to understand the technicalities of it all, but it does sound as if you have got to speak to someone at Zen who is being consistent with their information to you.
One thing I would have a concern over with what Zen are proposing is if you ever want to switch away from Zen in the future, would that type of transfer also get a 'nope I'm not doing that' style response and cause issues? - Of course, it might not work like that and I may just be showing my ignorance.
On another note, one of the ISPs i mentioned on the previous page, unchained, are now offering a 1gb line for £1 a month more than Zen and are guaranteeing a BT Wholesale backhaul and I think they have all of the features that you are looking for - so you might want to keep that information in your 'back pocket' in case it all goes pear shaped with Zen again.
I bet the 10 days to another remigration are really dragging, but I hope that you will have this all sorted soon and your case will act as a beacon of hope to other Zen users and Zen have finally realised that this doesn't work for some users.
Interesting, where have you seen that with Unchained? I've just spent 5 mins on their website and not been able to get near that option. Seems difficult enough to even get to ordering the 330 package. Have to be honest, given I've genuinely spent 5 mins and not found what I want or anything close, it doesn't bode well for service going forward!
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After you click on 330/50, there are a range of 'configurable options' which are the range of speeds you can order - 1000/115 is £56 inc vat a month
They have only added that option in the last few weeks - they are probably my #1 choice at the moment as I wouldn't have the potential Zen GEA issue and they are considerably cheaper than AAISP and you get to stay on BT Wholesale backhaul
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Every now and then I think I'm mad, then I think that the GEA issue is the only problem I have with Zen. In selecting an alternative there has been a large compromise for all - cost if I want to be able to talk to someone that has half a clue what they're doing (AA), A naff call centre, or no static IP, or no IPv6 if I want to limit cost to similar to what I am paying. Annoyingly, GEA aside, Zen does seem to be the sweet spot for me.
I'll report back in 4-6 weeks :D
You're a more tolerant person than me, but I think it's perhaps a doomed strategy. Zen are able to offer less expensive but still personal service because of their own backhaul, and their stated goal is to get everyone migrated. Your connection, regardless of promises, is going to be fighting the tide of their systems, and I can't see it but ending in frustration (assuming they don't manage to work out what's going on, which I doubt, as this has been going on for nearly 18 months across various customers).
Best of luck with it though.
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You're a more tolerant person than me, but I think it's perhaps a doomed strategy. Zen are able to offer less expensive but still personal service because of their own backhaul, and their stated goal is to get everyone migrated. Your connection, regardless of promises, is going to be fighting the tide of their systems, and I can't see it but ending in frustration (assuming they don't manage to work out what's going on, which I doubt, as this has been going on for nearly 18 months across various customers).
Best of luck with it though.
I fear you.may be right, and I'll be hopping off the first sniff of any trouble in the future. Hopefully by that time I'll have worked out the next best option :D
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Maybe you will get lucky and CityFibre come along, if this IS an OR issue of some sort then hopefully CF connections are immune to the problem. I'm not sure where Zen backhaul comes into the picture on the CF network.
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On another note, one of the ISPs i mentioned on the previous page, unchained, are now offering a 1gb line for £1 a month more than Zen and are guaranteeing a BT Wholesale backhaul and I think they have all of the features that you are looking for - so you might want to keep that information in your 'back pocket' in case it all goes pear shaped with Zen again.
Thanks for this pointer. I had a look at Unchained and they look very interesting, they can do slightly off the beaten track things link do you a block of 8 static IPs for £6 a month, and a real person answered my queries over the weekend, so I'm going to give them a crack - as I'm out of contract on AAISP and getting a bit fed up of moving my connection back and forth between 1TB and 10TB to try and save pennies. I've asked to have an extra provision put in (instead of migrating the working AAISP setup) - so hopefully will get a 4 port ONT, and will then cease the AAISP line once I'm happy with it.
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Aaaaand I'm back on the BT Whoesale backhaul with Zen - hopefully for good this time.
I wonder, can anyone spot the period I was on the Zen GEA this time? :D
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Hmmm I don't know, its kinda hard to tell. ::)
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I'm still on the Wholesale GEA with no issues at all :fingers:
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Tempting fate there a bit?
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Fingers crossed...
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For those interested / that come across this in the future....still all good....still keeping my fingers firmly crossed though! That's over 90 days :clap:
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They're rising in my estimations to only be slightly incompetent... :)
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They're rising in my estimations to only be slightly incompetent... :)
To be fair when it comes to ISPs, that's high praise. :lol: