Sky vs Zen vs Plusnet for Fibre Broadband

[Ian]

I've been with Sky broadband for a long time, however I was troubleshooting our connection last night and I started to review some of the competing providers. Sky seem to be mid-priced but have truly unlimited usage and no traffic shaping, Plusnet have traffic shaping for P2P/Usenet but appear to be unlimited usage, Zen appears to be unlimited usage with no traffic shaping.

I'm considering making the jump from Sky to one of the other two providers, but I'd be interested to hear from anyone that is a customer. I seem to recall that we've got members using both and they're well liked providers?

My criteria would be unlimited usage (as I get through crazy amounts of data each month), non aggressive traffic shaping, complementary phone contract and ideally UK based support.

Although I'm on a Fibre connection, I'm only getting 18Mbps at the moment - but I'm tweaking everything to try and boost that .

 

[Urmas]

... crazy amounts of data...

That's precise.

 

[Ian]

That's precise.

That's my best guess . I don't have any way to track it, but it would be hundreds of GB/month minimum. I just mentioned it as it's a truly unlimited package I'm after - rather than "unlimited" with a fair usage cap of 100GB/month.

 

[Urmas]

I just mentioned it as it's a truly unlimited package I'm after - rather than "unlimited" with a fair usage cap of 100GB/month.

Figured as much. The reason I asked, I did a quick search, and there still does not seem to be truly unlimited 4G packages in the UK. I've used (unlimited) 4G as my main "source of Internet" for a good while now (my mobile data usage is 60—100+ GB/month), and it performs like a chimp champ.

I guess I've said that a couple of times before.

Just that it seems so stupid that U.K. mobile operators build a great piece of infrastructure... and then cripple it with caps.

 

[V_R]

Plusnet user here. Very happy with them, although it seems some aren't as they've got some issues with part of their network, which is only affecting new customers and existing customers with dynamic addresses. I've got a static so I'm not on this new network so I haven't seen of said issues.

They do traffic prioritisation as they call it. But tbh its a non issue, see below.

https://www.plus.net/help/broadband/about-traffic-prioritisation/

As for usage:

This month you've used
663.05GB
(598.47GB during peak hours
64.58GB during off-peak hours)

Billing period starts again on the 10th. That's about average, never had an issue.


Sky and BT seem to be the top favourites at the moment, and you get BT Sport free if you have BT Broadband if that floats your boat.

 

[Taffycat]

We have been with Zen Internet (FTC) for about 18 months now. We're on their combined internet and landline service, which may not be the cheapest, but has been faultless. We don't experience any traffic-shaping, usage is truly unlimited, their Customer Service folk are in the UK too.

With fibre, we usually get about 63 Mb/s download and about 14 Mb/s upload.

 

[Ian]

Figured as much. The reason I asked, I did a quick search, and there still does not seem to be truly unlimited 4G packages in the UK. I've used (unlimited) 4G as my main "source of Internet" for a good while now (my mobile data usage is 60—100+ GB/month), and it performs like a chimp champ.

I guess I've said that a couple of times before.

Just that it seems so stupid that U.K. mobile operators build a great piece of infrastructure... and then cripple it with caps.

If they had unlimited 4G over here, I'd be on it like a shot - it's faster than my VDSL connection, even though I have a poor signal!

One day, I'm sure it'll be possible to go down this route... one day!

Plusnet user here. Very happy with them, although it seems some aren't as they've got some issues with part of their network, which is only affecting new customers and existing customers with dynamic addresses. I've got a static so I'm not on this new network so I haven't seen of said issues.

We have been with Zen Internet (FTC) for about 18 months now. We're on their combined internet and landline service, which may not be the cheapest, but has been faultless. We don't experience any traffic-shaping, usage is truly unlimited, their Customer Service folk are in the UK too.

Thank you both for the feedback, it's good to know that both are good possible choices. I'm a little wary about Plusnet's traffic shaping, but if you've not had any problems then that's reassuring to know.

However, I've got a problem! I checked Zen's website to see what they could offer, but it said Fibre wasn't available (even though I have it already). Puzzling... so I checked BT and they said this:

Infinity is available in your area but due to high demand there is currently no capacity left at your local cabinet. There will be a waiting period until we can activate the service.

Hmmm... that may explain why my speeds have dropped so much recently! It also appears that I can't sign up for a transfer anywhere else . I'll give it a couple of months and see what happens. I hope this means they put a BT box nearer to our house, as the line length is something like 2km .

 

[Taffycat]

Aww, that's really tough luck @Ian. It is astonishing that BT can still plead "no capacity" ... however, I did read this (with my bold):

The on-going roll-out, which started in July 2014 and was funded by investment from BT, the Broadband Delivery UK programme and the EU (ERDF), focused on delivering upgrades to eight of the main local authorities: Stockport, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan.

Sadly Manchester itself and Salford were not included because they’d already received investment from elsewhere and BDUK funding is not intended to be used in dense urban areas. Overall 500 new street cabinets have so far been installed, with the most recent one going live in the rural village of Mellor, near Marple (Stockport).

Source: www.ispreview.co.uk

 

[Ian]

Ah that's actually not a bad thing, as we're technically in "Trafford" now which is on that list . I guess that may be why our cabinet was upgraded originally - it took ages due to planning disputes, but we got in contact with a local MP who seemed to help clear the jam.

I'd be worried that if I migrated I'd find that I just free up a spot for someone else and end up back on ADSL .

I've made some changes to my cabling and managed to improve the SNR to 11dB, which I'm hoping means that the DLM will make some adjustments to my line speed in the coming days. If I could get back to 21Mbps I'd be pleased .

 

[V_R]

Sounds like you might be a victim of crosstalk Ian. Or at least it isn't helping matters.

FTTC DLM can take weeks to adjust unfortunately, I'm still waiting for mine to move back up to the top profile as it dropped a couple of weeks ago when the power was on and off while we had some work done.

You could try and get it reset via your ISP, not sure how successful it would be though.

 

[Ian]

I'll probably just wait this one out, as I've got more downtime to come - I'm getting the faceplate changed to a Mk3 tomorrow. Plus, I'm temporarily using a different modem in front of my usual modem/router as it seems to sync with a lower attenuation (~28dB vs ~30dB).

 

[bootneck02]

When we moved out here I tried BT but it was so slow I changed to Vfast which is a subsidised by KCC BT have at last brought fiber to the box in the village but as the BT overhead cable to the houses is a mixture of copper and aluminum (so I am informed by a BT engineer)and aluminum has a greater resistance than copper it slows down the signal here as Vfast is a by sight wireless signal so I still get a better signal than my neighbors.

 

[Ian]

I checked again today and it looks like the cabinet is accepting order again - that was fast!

I've just switched to Zen . I was about to jump to plusnet, but Zen seems like a top-notch place from all the reviews I've read - so I'm happy to pay a little premium.

 

[V_R]

Nice one. Must admit, I'd be weary about signing up to PN with the issues they're having with new customers and the new network at this moment in time.

Think you've made a good choice.

 

[floppybootstomp]

A little late with my reply but I've been with Zen for 13.5 years now, if that's any recommendation.

I also rent my Landline from them, paying £17 for landline, £30 for internet which ain't cheap but in all this time I could count the problems I've had on the fingers of one hand. And all of those glitches were sorted out quickly via their helpful helpline.

No throttling or download probs although recently I've noticed I may have been blocked from a torrent site but it may be that the site has gone offline for one reason or another.

I like to convince myself that my landline/internet is subsidised by my monthly mobile phone charge of £6.

 

[Ian]

Back online with Zen and so far so good - seems noticeably faster!

Here's the speed test results:

 

[Taffycat]

I also rent my Landline from them, paying £17 for landline, £30 for internet which ain't cheap but in all this time I could count the problems I've had on the fingers of one hand. And all of those glitches were sorted out quickly via their helpful helpline.

I believe we are on the same tariff as you @floppybootstomp and likewise, have found Zen to be refreshingly free of problems. Also would agree about their Helpline persons being very helpful. (They helped me to sort-out an email configuration problem, very early on, when we first switched to them, without making me feel like an idiot.)

 

[Ian]

I love the facilities Zen have for managing connections - their control panel tells me sync speeds, DLM info and loads of stuff . Really pleased we made the jump now.

 

[Taffycat]

I love the facilities Zen have for managing connections - their control panel tells me sync speeds, DLM info and loads of stuff . Really pleased we made the jump now.

Their Support Forums are also quite helpful for Zen-related topics. (I really haven't used them much, tbh, but I did find that peeps were quite quick to reply when I queried something at the time of first switching to Zen.)

 

[Ian]

That's good to know! I did contact their support team via e-mail on transfer day and they were very responsive.