Zen Internet - all mouth and no trousers?

iniltous

Because NOTs was only concerned with Openreach providers ,both ISP involved in the migration would use  the common ordering portal and the system messages between both Zen as the gaining provider , Plusnet as the losing provider ,  BTw ( BT Wholesale, who provided the common portal ) and Openreach are all linked , the order flow , progress , any delay are all managed by the NOTs system, so basically when Zen put an order in on your behalf, saying  that you are becoming their customer , provided they indicate you have an existing Openreach service , the BTw NOT system advises Plusnet that you are leaving them on the date Zen gave you  , and you get a message saying ‘sorry you are leaving’   from PN , NOTS also creates a task for Openreach detailing what’s needed and the date it’s needed .

Provided the work is done by OR successfully on that date Zen asked for , Zen will be responsible for providing your service,and PN become your ex provider , OR are tasked to do whatever work is needed by NOTS / Zen ( this varies depending on the products involved , ADSL , FTTC ,FTTP etc ) , PN are passive , waiting to be told the work is done by OR via NOTS , the OR completion message lets Plusnet and Zen know this is done at the same time so you can’t be charged twice for the same day .

OTS is different in that BTw have no involvement at all , the message system between both ISP’s  and the network or networks involved is ran entirely by TOTSCo  ( the one touch switching company ) and frankly no one outside of TOTSCo seems to know how the messages between the ISP involved and the now multiple networks are created, issued, and responded to , but in essence the process should be similar , you only advise the new company ( Zen in your case ) , they,  via TOTSCo ( not BTW because you may not be staying on OR ) advise PN of the date the new provider intends to take over , PN respond by sending you a sorry you are leaving communication , the NOTs system had many checks and balances before PN get the OK to stop providing your services , OTS may have the same failsafes , or may not , no one really knows apart from TOTSCo .

So was the still evolving OTS system responsible for your 3 week delay , was it Zens  unfamiliarity or poor integration with OTS that was responsible , who knows , you will probably never know for sure, would the same delay have happened if you had changed to Zen in August last year before OTS was introduced and replaced NOTs , we can only speculate, but as stated NOTs was only Openreach ISP’s  , as more and more alternative networks become available , OFCOM decided a new system was necessary and decided to create TOTSCo to design,  implement and run the new system, cutting BTw out if the process , so all the old knowledge and assumptions about the  NOTs system is now irrelevant, but the one underlying similarity with OTS is its still GPL , gaining provider led, its the new provider that is in charge , the losing provider is pretty powerless 

This doesn’t let Zen off the hook BTW , but given your experience with them so far , I wouldn’t be surprised , as they now can’t blame Openreach , they simply change that to blaming TOTSCo , which may or may not be true , but as with their previous defections of responsibility, it doesn’t matter , you ordered with Zen , not TOTSCo , or they may ‘fess up’ and say their Zen system simply didn’t respond to the TOTSCo message that said OR had done their work , TBH I wouldn’t waste any more time on that , simply hope they get the porting element done , compensate you appropriately and that you don’t have any more problems 

br1anst0rm

The list of organisations involved seems to get longer and longer!  So far, no-one at Zen has even mentioned "TOTSCo".

But the latest messages from Zen are now all about the porting of the landline number in order to activate the Digital Voice (VOIP) service which was and is an integral part of my original order.  It still hasn't been provided.  And the latest story is that Zen is engaging with "BT IPEX" to get this done, and Zen has to depend on BT IPEX to do whatever is needed.  

So yet another player is in the game, more delay, and once again, the buck being passed.  It doesn't seem to get any better....

M25

I think Zen have been excellent so far. Not sure why you think the buck's being passed what else can Zen do but go through the required processes?

I think you're expecting far too much for your money.

Hopefully you've learned a few lessons as a consumer too and maybe plan things better the next time and not blame everyone else when things don't reach the levels of perfection you expect.

iniltous

It does seem to be built into Zens DNA to not accept responsibility and deflect ‘blame’ when anything at all goes wrong .

BT are only involved with your porting request, in so far that the phone number you want to keep was ( presumably ) originally allocated to BT , so BT are the range holder in which your individual phone number sits …

just for completeness, Ofcom own all British phone numbers not BT , not Plusnet not Zen , they allocate any Communications Provider that wants to supply telephone services with blocks of numbers ( number ranges )  even though Plusnet not BT were your provider , it’s probably worth noting that the phone number was probably never ported to PN from BT , a wholesale arrangement between BT and PN meant that your calls were handled by BT but PN billed you for them .

Assuming your port is eventually successful and you become a Zen telephony customer , BT and PN will have no involvement in your outgoing calls at all and a tiny involvement in your incoming calls …..provided the porting  instructions sent by Zen are in the correct format and presented to the losing range holder ( number range holder , BT in your case ) in a timely fashion , then BT as the losing provider have very little work to do, a very simplified explanation is , after all successful port , someone calls your BT number  from say Virgin , the call enquiry from the network originating the call goes initially to BT , BT electronically say this number is no longer anything to do with us , this is a ported number to Zen  network, please redirect your enquiry to Zen ,
the originating network (Virgin ) , now contacts Zen with the port info BT supplied , Zen say , yep this is our number , and the call goes through Zen to you , this is done in a few milliseconds….if Zen are saying it’s with BT , I’d be suspicious then they haven’t sent the request, it’s in the wrong format or hasn’t been sent in the appropriate timeframe, as porting instructions are pretty much automated, request comes in , few data changes made to redirect incoming traffic, that’s it , as stated , Zen haven’t even provided you your outgoing service ( dialtone ) and BT/Plusnet are not involved in your outgoing VoIP service at all .

br1anst0rm

M25 said:

I think Zen have been excellent so far. Not sure why you think the buck's being passed what else can Zen do but go through the required processes?

Oh dear.  What planet are you on, @M25 ?  You are definitely in a minority of one on this occasion.

I think you're expecting far too much for your money.

I'm expecting the provider to deliver what was ordered, in line with the commitment they made, in the timeframe they specified, at the price they charged.  Not an unrealistic expectation at all.  But it hasn't been fulfilled.

Hopefully you've learned a few lessons as a consumer too and maybe plan things better the next time and not blame everyone else when things don't reach the levels of perfection you expect.

Yes, I have learned at least two lessons.  One, not to believe Zen's promises, PR and marketing claims, or past reputation.  Two, that there are quite a few naive, foolish and prejudiced people in the world, and at least one in this forum.

M25

br1anst0rm said:

Yes, I have learned at least two lessons.  One, not to believe Zen's promises, PR and marketing claims, or past reputation.  Two, that there are quite a few naive, foolish and prejudiced people in the world, and at least one in this forum.

Well, at least you do admit to being unrealistic, unreasonable and officious.

Zen are doing everything they can.

It'll get sorted.

iniltous

Have you actually read this post , you do realise something Zen could have done on the day service was supposed to be supplied, they took over 3 weeks to accomplish, there never was a problem anywhere other than within Zens network, and it wasn’t even a difficult problem to solve , yet you think they did all they could and provided good service , if 3 weeks late is good service what would you call doing the job they were supposed to do on the correct day instead of three weeks late , in my opinion doing something properly on the correct day is good , doing it 3 weeks late can’t also be good , it by definition must be worse ….

If  you ordered a pizza and it arrived 3 weeks after they said it would be delivered, would you tip the delivery person and leave a good review ? 

baward

I wonder if this all has something to do with the transfer being scheduled one week before Christmas?

br1anst0rm

baward said:

I wonder if this all has something to do with the transfer being scheduled one week before Christmas?

Do the internet connections and phone lines close down for Christmas?  

The timing of our original order and switch of ISP and phone provider was dictated by the end-date of the contract with our previous provider (Plusnet).  

Zen said they needed only 3-4 days notice.  They had more than two weeks.

The order was placed on 4 December.  That is three weeks before Christmas.  The switchover date (18 Dec) was agreed when the order was confirmed.

I think this speculative suggestion is a complete red herring, and no excuse for the shambles described in this thread.

Sutherland456

My experience of Zen Internet was awful.  If you haven't already done so, my advice would be to raise a formal complaint about Zen with Ofcom, and remove yourself from Zen as soon as you can.  I was a Zen customer for many years, and although they weren't great they also weren't as bad as some.  Before I moved house I asked Zen if they could transfer my landline and broadband service to my new address.  I received the paperwork from Zen setting out what they were going to do and when, BT OpenReach came round to my new address and connected the new landline within a few days of me moving in, and Zen were to have my broadband service up and running within 7 days of that.  I kept checking to see if I was back online again, but I continued to have no service.  Zen didn't contact me to explain what had happened, and I had to keep chasing them for information.  After almost 3 months of me ringing Zen repeatedly and then lodging a formal complaint with them, they eventually provided me with a connection speed of half of 1 Mb/s, which was laughable and made the old dial up service look mercurial.  During this time I also discovered that someone at Zen had deleted my email accounts instead of transferring them to my new address, and 3 email addresses, along with who knows how many emails that had been sent to me during the time my promised service wasn't working, were gone - I only discovered that this had happend when I began receiving text messages asking why emails that had been sent to me were bouncing back to the senders.  I spent hours on the phone to Zen, being spun one story after another - the problems were at the exchange, or it was a problem at the cabinet, or it was OpenReach's problem and not Zen's, or not to worry as everything would be working again within a few days.  Promised updates and call backs from Zen rarely took place, and I was generally left wondering what on earth was going on.  Zen never got a grip on the situation, and what was worse was that they didn't seem particularly interested in doing so.  I moved my broadband to IQ Mobile, who have been extremely helpful and proactive from the start and I usually speak to the same person if I ring them up, which is reassuring.  Any problems, which have been few, are dealt with promptly and sorted out straight away, and the broadband speed I get now is excellent and trouble free.  I still have a thick file of notes, emails and telephone transcripts from that torturous Zen experience, and one day I'll have a big bonfire and thoroughly enjoy chucking the lot on to it.