Zen internet customers can now sign up to fibre-based broadband packages with twice the download speed of its previous maximum.The company's new fibre options now offer download speeds of up to 76Mbps and uploads of up to 19Mbps and are available to business and residential customers.
Zen internet customers can now sign up to fibre-based broadband packages with twice the download speed of its previous maximum.
The company's new fibre options now offer download speeds of up to 76Mbps and uploads of up to 19Mbps and are available to business and residential customers.
"Existing users of Zen's Fibre Active, Fibre Pro, Fibre Office and Fibre Office Plus will be automatically upgraded without charge to the new faster speeds from 9 May and unlike other ISPs Zen's existing customers will not be required to sign a new contract to take advantage of them," Zen said in a statement.
The lowest tier fibre package remains unchanged and offers maximum speeds of 38Mbps downstream and 9.5Mbps upstream, Zen said.
Zen's upgraded packages are being facilitated by BT's £2.5bn fibre rollout, which has seen customers on BT's own Infinity fibre packages double in speed to up to 76Mbps.
Unlike BT's and other ISPs residential packages, Zen's products come without any form of traffic management and are available on 12-month contracts. However, the packages come with a capped data limit. The cheapest option costs £35 per month, with an additional one-off activation fee of £96. It also requires a Zen — or BT — phone line, which is an extra £11.22 per month, and provides 100GB of data usage.
Zen also offers home or home office packages providing up to 1000GB of inclusive data usage, which costs £78 per month.
While the infrastructure delivering the faster speeds is the same as that offered by BT Retail, the management and support of that technology is very different.
– Zen
In comparison, BT's residential Infinity packages cost around £26 per month for unlimited data usage, but are subject to traffic management measures. It also requires a BT phone line, which is an additional £14.60 per month.
"We acknowledge that our services are at a premium when compared to other broadband products, however like all of Zen's services they are supported by a highly robust and resilient network, excellent technical support and customer service and an award-winning reputation," a Zen spokeswoman told ZDNet UK.
The spokeswoman said the difference in pricing was justified as even though Zen was using BT's infrastructure to deliver its services, it maintains its own specialist customer support team.
"While the infrastructure delivering the faster speeds is the same as that offered by BT Retail, the management and support of that technology is very different. We have invested heavily in [...] a robust network which allows us to remain one of very few ISPs that do not artificially slow down customer connections via traffic management," she said.
