Kitz Forum
Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: hushcoden on July 21, 2020, 05:49:41 PM
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I'd appreciate if anyone using G.fast on Zen (or used recently) could share his/her own experience.
Tia.
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Still on Zen 330/50 after one year. I am quite close to the cabinet, so I get full sync. The stability is quite good from the G.fast technology and it can often go weeks without disconnects.
Zen's service itself hasn't really given me any issues, except when I was initially routed via Manchester as opposed to London (as the former was further away). When this was changed, the latency was reduced to expected levels and single-thread speeds were much better. Their support seems competent, but if I recall correctly they sent out an Openreach engineer for the single-thread issues (which were essentially fixed by changing the routing) - but on the plus, the engineer did actually pick up on a few issues that the original installing engineer did not and managed to improve the connection a bit.
I am not using their own hardware so I cannot comment on how good it is. Instead, I've opted for a Zyxel XMG3927-B50A which serves me well as a modem-router combo.
I would say I am happy with the service provided, even if it is a little steep in price. I would say that the product looked appealing with a 12 months contract. Now it looks like they've decided to change it to 18 months so if I want to downgrade to 160/30 then I may just move back to Pulse8 (https://pulse8broadband.co.uk/fibreoptic-broadband) again to take a 1 month rolling contract (but I want IPv6, which Pulse8 did not offer when I last checked).
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Thanks re0, I just checked Pulse8 and they also offer 10Mbps in upload, so most likely that's a 'limitation' of G.fast on my Exchange, shame... and good to see their offers are very competitive - the G.fast standard 135/10 which is the same speed that Zen would offer me is £2 cheaper ::)
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I just checked Pulse8 and they also offer 10Mbps in upload, so most likely that's a 'limitation' of G.fast on my Exchange
It's because of your line length. G.fast utilises higher frequencies to avoid disrupting existing VDSL connections. Sadly, this can mean the upstream can be LOWER than with VDSL (even though the downstream can be higher) on the same physical line. Check (ideally using your current landline number if possible) on the BT Wholesale Broadband Availability Checker (https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com) and you should get an idea of the expected ranges.
... good to see their offers are very competitive - the G.fast standard 135/10 which is the same speed that Zen would offer me is £2 cheaper
With Pulse8, the upside is the 1 month rolling contract. But the downside is lack of IPv6. But it's probably worth it if you don't have use for IPv6 and you don't want to be locked into a long contract.
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Still on Zen 330/50 after one year. I am quite close to the cabinet, so I get full sync. The stability is quite good from the G.fast technology and it can often go weeks without disconnects.
Zen's service itself hasn't really given me any issues, except when I was initially routed via Manchester as opposed to London (as the former was further away). When this was changed, the latency was reduced to expected levels and single-thread speeds were much better. Their support seems competent, but if I recall correctly they sent out an Openreach engineer for the single-thread issues (which were essentially fixed by changing the routing) - but on the plus, the engineer did actually pick up on a few issues that the original installing engineer did not and managed to improve the connection a bit.
I am not using their own hardware so I cannot comment on how good it is. Instead, I've opted for a Zyxel XMG3927-B50A which serves me well as a modem-router combo.
I would say I am happy with the service provided, even if it is a little steep in price. I would say that the product looked appealing with a 12 months contract. Now it looks like they've decided to change it to 18 months so if I want to downgrade to 160/30 then I may just move back to Pulse8 (https://pulse8broadband.co.uk/fibreoptic-broadband) again to take a 1 month rolling contract (but I want IPv6, which Pulse8 did not offer when I last checked).
I had g.fast from Zen between September 2018 and July 2020 and my experience was similar (apart from my 240/30 sync). I had my routing changed as outlined above and the connection was solid and it would only resync in the middle of the night every couple of months which I think is just Zen load balancing or network updates that openreach were doing. I used the mt992 and ac68u router and had no issue apart from the lack of stats which I only had a brief overview of via Zen's portal.
I left g.fast earlier thus month to save some cash and because I just didn't need to download at 30mb per sec and the 9.3 I get from fttc is perfectly adequate for 99% if my needs and I only miss it when doing big game updates in Steam or when I've bought a new game.