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[Jon21]

I've had notification of a price rise incoming from Sky. I'm thinking of trying Zen again. Didn't have any problems with them when I was last with them, although have seen some threads and reviews recently which suggest they may have gone down hill?

On the package options, I get offered Unlimited Fibre 1 and 2 but the default seems to be without phone line rental. There's an option to add digital voice, which increases the price. Does that mean that they are now selling SOGEA connections as default?

[burakkucat]

. . . I get offered Unlimited Fibre 1 and 2 but the default seems to be without phone line rental. There's an option to add digital voice, which increases the price. Does that mean that they are now selling SOGEA connections as default?

From what you have described, yes, it does appear to be so.

[Alex Atkin UK]

All I can say is I'm happy with Zen and plan to stick with them for the foreseeable future.

[AnthonyG]

The only issue I would say is they use PPPOE for their FTTP. This means if you want to use PFsense or Opnsense you need a very beefy processor in order to get full speed.

Other ISPs such as TalkTalk offer FTTP over DHCP. Meaning you can get full speeds from a very moderate processor (e.g J1900) I personally think these ISPs should be supported and it makes life much easier.

[Alex Atkin UK]

By todays standards I'd say a J1900 is a pocket calculator and its not Zens fault FreeBSD has a horrible PPP implementation.

I'd absolutely love to be done with PPP, but most ISPs use it because it ties into their legacy accounting system which might date back to dialup days.  When even A&A use it (allowing them to offer L2TP), I don't think you can call out Zen for doing so.

I get the principle, without PPP it would still be enough for a basic router, but to suggest you need a beefy CPU seems a bit of an exaggeration, considering what a beefy CPU is today.  Plus if you're doing so little you aren't taxing a J1900, do you even NEED pfSense?

Even if Zen was DHCP, I have AAISP L2TP and several OpenVPN instances on my box, so a J1900 would have a very bad time.

[j0hn]

The only issue I would say is they use PPPOE for their FTTP. This means if you want to use PFsense or Opnsense you need a very beefy processor in order to get full speed.

Other ISPs such as TalkTalk offer FTTP over DHCP. Meaning you can get full speeds from a very moderate processor (e.g J1900) I personally think these ISPs should be supported and it makes life much easier.

That's far from unique to Zen though and it's completely out of their control.
Talktalk (residential only) and Sky(including Now) are literally the only 2 Openreach providers that don't do PPPoE.

Anyone who needs a decent ISP or a static IP over Openreach is stuck with PPP.

[meritez]

The only issue I would say is they use PPPOE for their FTTP. This means if you want to use PFsense or Opnsense you need a very beefy processor in order to get full speed.

Other ISPs such as TalkTalk offer FTTP over DHCP. Meaning you can get full speeds from a very moderate processor (e.g J1900) I personally think these ISPs should be supported and it makes life much easier.

Today I learnt my Mikrotik hAP Lite is more powerful than PFsense or OPNsense

[Alex Atkin UK]

Today I learnt my Mikrotik hAP Lite is more powerful than PFsense or OPNsense

Depends how you class power.  Devices with hardware offloading are more efficient but less "powerful" when it comes to flexibility in what you can do.

eg A lot of router hardware achieves Gigabit NAT (never mind PPP) by hardware offloading that prevents you being able to use any stateful packet filtering, QoS, basically anything other than very basic NAT functionality.  I've seen claims PPP is often hardware accelerated too though never seen any specific hardware mentioned or how that works.

[craigski]

Depends how you class power.  Devices with hardware offloading are more efficient but less "powerful" when it comes to flexibility in what you can do.

Also devices with hardware acceleration will probably use less 'power' (electricity) 

Draytek have a useful video with flow chart, showing how the acceleration is used with firewall & QoS etc in their devices, I assume will be similar for other devices with similar functionality:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCZZ15fa2nU&t=960s

[Jon21]

All I can say is I'm happy with Zen and plan to stick with them for the foreseeable future.

Thanks. Overall, they do seem to still be recommended. Would I be able to use your referral link?

[meritez]

Depends how you class power.  Devices with hardware offloading are more efficient but less "powerful" when it comes to flexibility in what you can do.

eg A lot of router hardware achieves Gigabit NAT (never mind PPP) by hardware offloading that prevents you being able to use any stateful packet filtering, QoS, basically anything other than very basic NAT functionality.  I've seen claims PPP is often hardware accelerated too though never seen any specific hardware mentioned or how that works.

3.5w power usage.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Thanks. Overall, they do seem to still be recommended. Would I be able to use your referral link?

Please do, its on the site linked in my sig.

[Jon21]

Please do, its on the site linked in my sig.

Thanks. Unfortunately, I can't get past the creating an account part. It just seems to loop as soon as I hit continue. I had issues trying to sign up the last I went with Zen. Had to do it via email in the end, so might have to go down that route again.

[Woolwich]

Does that mean that they are now selling SOGEA connections as default?

Yes and no. We just ordered a new Zen FTTC service at a new location. It's a business address and we ordered a business package which includes a phone line (yea olde fashioned PSTN, not digital). The address did allow the option of a consumer contract which was SOGEA with digital phone option as an extra.

And yes, I still like Zen and recommend them.

[francisuk1989]

I joined Zen FTTC unlimited fibre 2 with a phone line for for gaming for low latency to gaming servers as they have direct peering for Microsoft (Xbox), Steam and Google Stadia), It was going great until i had a problem with the lon2/ixn xDSL gateway that was giving me the double of pings, Instead of 7ms, it about 18-21ms however this was a issue with talktalk wholesale side of things but taken me just a month and abit just to get them to move me over to a BT Wholesale (BTw) line that i originally on, and now ill be moved over to BTw at the end of this month.

Keep in mind, Zen will take out 1 month in advance when signing up (but this was done on phone sales) not sure if online is the same.

Talktalk (residential only) and Sky(including Now) are literally the only 2 Openreach providers that don't do PPPoE.

Do Sky do option DHCP 61/client ID still?

Edit
Tried going to Zen for SoGEA but they wont take of the line rental so still £34.99 without contract.(30 day rolling)
Also i did ask if get the "Digital Voice" would Zen provide me with the VoIP information so i could stick this on my cisco IP phone but is in there T&C that it has to be on there Fritzbox, so 7530 unless they giving out the AX version to new customers with Broadcom DSL chipset https://en.avm.de/products/fritzbox/fritzbox-7530-ax/
If you need a Digital Voice with a number then AAISP is the best one with no restrictions and can put on a cisco ip phone (VoIP info will be on there customer panel) https://www.aa.net.uk/voice-and-mobile/voip-information/ - Just remember, If you have a router that QoS compatible, Remember to let VoIP traffic for high priority traffic unless Zen has this in place already or get there Fritzbox to do it via TR-069.