Discussion
This week we found out that we have to move house. Bit of a PITA to be honest, but we have found a new property near by so will be moving in less than a month's time.
The bonus is that FTTP is available with speeds quoted at 1Gb down and up to 220Mb up (from BT Wholesale checking site). This is vastly better than the 4G broadband we currently have (best is 60Mb down and 30Mb up!)
Prices are not bad either. Zen £62.99 month, BT £59.99 / month - which is only 2.99 - 5.99 more than I'm paying for my multiple 4G sims.
Is there any benefit with going with Zen over BT? I don't need the FRITZ!Box 7530 Wifi Router that comes with Zen.
Is there any other provider to consider - most of the consumer broadband sites max out at 64Mb down.
I will have some redundant 4G routers as well if anyone would be interested.
TIA
FG
The bonus is that FTTP is available with speeds quoted at 1Gb down and up to 220Mb up (from BT Wholesale checking site). This is vastly better than the 4G broadband we currently have (best is 60Mb down and 30Mb up!)
Prices are not bad either. Zen £62.99 month, BT £59.99 / month - which is only 2.99 - 5.99 more than I'm paying for my multiple 4G sims.
Is there any benefit with going with Zen over BT? I don't need the FRITZ!Box 7530 Wifi Router that comes with Zen.
Is there any other provider to consider - most of the consumer broadband sites max out at 64Mb down.
I will have some redundant 4G routers as well if anyone would be interested.
TIA
FG
I've recently upgraded to BTs 900 Ultrafast package. Average download speeds of 950Mbps and upload of 150Mbps. Kind of wish BT would make their line symmetrical but hey ho.
Like you've mentioned, it's a great price and the reliability (touch wood) had been very good. The Smart Hub 2 that comes with the package works really well and I've also have 2 blank Whole Home discs before I've upgraded which I am using.
This has been a blessing for working from home, loving it. Do I really need 900Mbps? Probably not, but nothing beats downloaded huge game files in less than 10 minutes
Beaware though that you'd probably expect around 450Mbps down at most on WiFi unless you are upgrading to some serious gear.
Like you've mentioned, it's a great price and the reliability (touch wood) had been very good. The Smart Hub 2 that comes with the package works really well and I've also have 2 blank Whole Home discs before I've upgraded which I am using.
This has been a blessing for working from home, loving it. Do I really need 900Mbps? Probably not, but nothing beats downloaded huge game files in less than 10 minutes
Beaware though that you'd probably expect around 450Mbps down at most on WiFi unless you are upgrading to some serious gear.
anxious_ant said:
Be aware though that you'd probably expect around 450Mbps down at most on WiFi unless you are upgrading to some serious gear.
Thanks - most of my stuff is 1Gbs wired and the the Asus Ai Mesh has max throughput of 1733 Mbs - not that I have any clients that can accept that. 873Mbs is the most I've seen on a client device.Glad to hear you have no issues with the BT 900 package.
FunkyGibbon said:
Thanks - most of my stuff is 1Gbs wired and the the Asus Ai Mesh has max throughput of 1733 Mbs - not that I have any clients that can accept that. 873Mbs is the most I've seen on a client device.
Glad to hear you have no issues with the BT 900 package.
873Mbps is really good for WiFi Glad to hear you have no issues with the BT 900 package.
I’m fawning over the ASUS Zen AX Whole Home mesh kit myself but that would just be too frivolous.
We have 300 down and wired to high traffic devices. Personally I wouldn’t bother with gigabit unless you have a lot of high bandwidth concurrent usage and/or the cost difference is negligible.
Without a doubt our heaviest clients are the gaming consoles and the rate limiting factor when downloading new games seems to be the server at the other end! Usually runs in the 60-180 range according to the monitoring app (wired connection before anyone blames it on WiFi limits!)
Without a doubt our heaviest clients are the gaming consoles and the rate limiting factor when downloading new games seems to be the server at the other end! Usually runs in the 60-180 range according to the monitoring app (wired connection before anyone blames it on WiFi limits!)
LooneyTunes said:
We have 300 down and wired to high traffic devices. Personally I wouldn’t bother with gigabit unless you have a lot of high bandwidth concurrent usage and/or the cost difference is negligible.
Difference between 300 and gigabit is £13/month - or on real-terms for me an extra £6/month above what I'm currently paying for my 4G connections - which max out at 60Mbs.Overkill - perhaps, but to me a bargain.
robsdesk said:
The faster upload on the 900 service was the reason I upgraded, with two of us working from home full time at the moment we use the bandwidth & yeah it's cheap (£60/month compared to the £4500 I haven't spent in the last year on a season ticket).
Have you actually checked to see if you are using all that bandwidth?My wife and I are also working from home on a 60/20 (actually getting 52 / 18 or so) and I can shove huge files up to my web server whilst she's on a video conference call and the call is simply not affected. The same goes for downloading.
TonyRPH said:
Have you actually checked to see if you are using all that bandwidth?
My wife and I are also working from home on a 60/20 (actually getting 52 / 18 or so) and I can shove huge files up to my web server whilst she's on a video conference call and the call is simply not affected. The same goes for downloading.
Yeah, router shows us thrashing it at times, Mrs works in learning & seems to create many large videos to upload. My team and I live in teams & the SharePoint service behind it, that'll happily take things as fast as you can send them, & it's cheap so...My wife and I are also working from home on a 60/20 (actually getting 52 / 18 or so) and I can shove huge files up to my web server whilst she's on a video conference call and the call is simply not affected. The same goes for downloading.
robsdesk said:
TonyRPH said:
Have you actually checked to see if you are using all that bandwidth?
My wife and I are also working from home on a 60/20 (actually getting 52 / 18 or so) and I can shove huge files up to my web server whilst she's on a video conference call and the call is simply not affected. The same goes for downloading.
Yeah, router shows us thrashing it at times, Mrs works in learning & seems to create many large videos to upload. My team and I live in teams & the SharePoint service behind it, that'll happily take things as fast as you can send them, & it's cheap so...My wife and I are also working from home on a 60/20 (actually getting 52 / 18 or so) and I can shove huge files up to my web server whilst she's on a video conference call and the call is simply not affected. The same goes for downloading.
Inbound:
Outbound:
vaud said:
Zen customer service is supposed to be very good.
No supposed about it. They are bloody fantastic - and seemed to be able to even get Openreach to do stuff in a timeline (albeit that I ended up paying for) no other supplier could commit to.
ETA - I’ve only had ADSL and FTTC fibre from Zen, so no direct experience of this exact product.
Would also add that the Fritz box kit is very good - well worth the premium over the BT branded stuff.
Edited by bobthemonkey on Saturday 20th February 21:21
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