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[bogof]

Following a GEA migration event (as witnessed by a phantom order on my account appearing on 22nd June) my Zen connection has got measurably worse (though annoyingly perhaps within their service level for consumers).
I was reliably able to Speedtest.net at 910 down / 110 up pretty much any time of day so long as I wasn't using the connection.
Following the GEA migration I find most servers (including Zen's own) Speedtest.net is around 500mbps (sometimes less).  I also notice that although the minimum ping latency has decreased, the jitter has increased.  There are a couple of Speedtest.net servers that test at around 800mbps (Swish Fibre, VeloxServ Communications).  The difference is marked, such that these appear to be in some kind of different operating groups - either they're routed differently, or the traffic is somehow not affected to such an extent by whatever issue is happening, etc.

This is on the evening of the GEA migration, you can see the TBB trace is quite different before and after:


There is a very big thread at TBB from a couple of other victims, however it's pretty light on useful information; after months of gnashing of teeth it seems one was only improved once migrated back off the Zen GEA, the other had another FTTP circuit installed by Zen via another ONT port and it mysteriously fixed the other port at some point.
https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/zen/t/4709246-slow-speed-after-gea-migration.html

Any thoughts folk?  (And yes, I appreciate that complaining about "only" getting 500mbps may be seen as bad sport by anyone unlucky enough to be in a notspot... )

[burakkucat]

https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/zen/t/4709246-slow-speed-after-gea-migration.html

Any thoughts folk?

I had completely forgotten about that TBB forum thread and so had another three pages of posts to read through. Phew! 

My only thought is "currently avoid Zen".

[bogof]

I had completely forgotten about that TBB forum thread and so had another three pages of posts to read through. Phew! 

My only thought is "currently avoid Zen".

It does read like a tale of woe.  Not so much for the issue itself, but for the hoop-jumping by the end users.
We shall see what comes of it.

[Alex Atkin UK]

This is certainly interesting going forward given Zen have said for a while now they hope to have their own cable links to all headend exchanges eventually.

What really baffles me is how the device at the end of the ONT made a difference if the problem is packet loss across the L2S.

Kinda disappointed nobody tested pfSense given MacOS seemed to be the only OS to mitigate this issue.

[skyeci]

How can you tell if you have been gea migrated?
I am on zen's 900 fttp. Had the service since early May (was zen fttc )before.

Speeds are excellent easily 900 on wired downloads over my cat6 lan and my ping seems to be 6ms approx.

Tbb ping https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/ec934ded36007a5c0d0d2dc183284eccf8c622fe

Be interested to know how to find out etc.

Thanks

[craigski]

How can you tell if you have been gea migrated?

Login to zen portal where you get your bills etc, go to order history, if you see something like below if you have been migrated

Zen FTTP GEA Migration
zen999999@zen   Fulfilled on 22/06/2022   £0

[skyeci]

Thanks. At the moment it would appear I haven't been migrated. I will keep an eye on this.

[bogof]

Thanks. At the moment it would appear I haven't been migrated. I will keep an eye on this.

I guess note that this I think only indicates if you are migrated from one mechanism to the other; I'm not sure if it is possible to know whether you were perhaps already migrated into Zen GEA at the point you signed up by virtue of Zen already having the capacity in your exchange when you signed up. 

If you have a connection that is currently getting you >900mbps up / >100mbps down, I'd be interested to know what your speedtest.net wired results are to Zen and to Swish Fibre's servers. 

I've spent a bit of time on the phone to the (very nice) staff at Zen going through various things; it seems like my issues have been escalated to a faults team.  Will be interesting to see what that brings.

[bogof]

This is certainly interesting going forward given Zen have said for a while now they hope to have their own cable links to all headend exchanges eventually.

What really baffles me is how the device at the end of the ONT made a difference if the problem is packet loss across the L2S.

Kinda disappointed nobody tested pfSense given MacOS seemed to be the only OS to mitigate this issue.

I tried a few different PCs today as PPPoE clients and had varying results, enough to make me think there might be a bit of a gateway lottery too thrown into the bargain.  The results were still good enough to indicate though that the issue is unlikely to be my hardware - I can get close to wire speed to some places, just not Zen's own server...

[skyeci]

I guess note that this I think only indicates if you are migrated from one mechanism to the other; I'm not sure if it is possible to know whether you were perhaps already migrated into Zen GEA at the point you signed up by virtue of Zen already having the capacity in your exchange when you signed up. 

If you have a connection that is currently getting you >900mbps up / >100mbps down, I'd be interested to know what your speedtest.net wired results are to Zen and to Swish Fibre's servers. 

I've spent a bit of time on the phone to the (very nice) staff at Zen going through various things; it seems like my issues have been escalated to a faults team.  Will be interesting to see what that brings.

Swish fibre https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/457bad96-77f6-4a4c-b530-bd8a4936f3e9

Zen https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/0e8c7ca4-7f94-4622-a88f-07aafecb5bc3

both over 900 down with my own opnsense router.

[bogof]

Swish fibre https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/457bad96-77f6-4a4c-b530-bd8a4936f3e9

Zen https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/0e8c7ca4-7f94-4622-a88f-07aafecb5bc3

both over 900 down with my own opnsense router.

Thanks, this confirms that there isn't a more general issue with the Zen speed tester server. Nothing I do can get me close to your Zen number, in spite of it being almost exactly what I was getting pre-migration.  What a pain.  We will see what they come back with.

[skyeci]

I thought one of them said it was a duff line card..

[bogof]

The more I read the thread the more I think it's not clear what it is...  At least 2 people now it seems have or are being moved off the Zen GEA connections back onto whatever they were on before to investigate it seems.

[skyeci]

It's something I will be keeping an eye on. Keep us posted on what the outcome is..

[craigski]

Today, just for kicks, I have been doing my own speed tests, and come to the conclusion that you can not trust the results the speed testing sites reveal at end of test.

I ran 4 different speed tests in succession from same device, on same network. I get 4 very different results, the Zen speedtest.net says 400Mbs, I know my line is faster than that, as I can download a Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft website quicker than 400Mbs. speed.cloudflare.com says 700Mbs (if I was going to trust one it would be this one, it 'feels' right), fast.com says 1.1Gbs, and BTW speedtest says 1846.43Mbs, ie twice the physical speed of my connection! All show different speeds and different ping times, so its all nonsense, and I now don't trust the figures they report after my little experiment.