Zen Internet review: The speed kings with great service

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Zen Internet is certainly the smallest company of the eight in this year’s broadband survey, but it’s probably the most garlanded. It’s won countless awards over the years and it’s got another one for the trophy cabinet, with a Highly Commended in this year’s Expert Reviews Broadband Awards.

The Rochdale-based provider came out top in two categories in our survey: value for money and speed. Zen, like our overall award winner Vodafone, has wholesale deals in place with both Openreach and CityFibre, meaning it can offer some of the fastest tariffs available and to more people than many providers. It’s also signed deals with other local fibre providers, meaning Zen could soon serve searing speeds to more customers.

Zen also topped our poll for value for money, which is a mark of its quality, as it’s by no means the cheapest provider of the eight we review here. There’s more than an element of paying for what you get with Zen.

The only blemish for Zen this year is a well-below par reliability score. It’s ranked highly for reliability in previous surveys, so let’s hope that’s a mere blip.

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Zen Internet review: Unlimited Fibre 1 and 2

Note: Prices were correct at the time of writing but are liable to change.

Unlimited Fibre is Zen’s branding for the fibre-to-the-cabinet lines that are… pretty limited in terms of speed, at least. The maximum you’re going to crank out of those lines is 73Mbits/sec on the downloads, with the slightly cheaper Unlimited Fibre 1 capping speeds at 36Mbits/sec.

Zen’s had a long association with the router manufacturer AVM and new customers are now sent a FRITZ!Box 7530 AX WiFi-6 router as part of the deal. While it’s not cutting-edge Wi-Fi 7 technology, which is still finding its feet, it should be plenty to get the relatively modest speeds of these connections beamed around the average home.

It’s also worth noting that Zen’s contracts are shorter than most, tying you down for only 18 months instead of the normal two years. What’s more, the company promises there will be no mid-contract price rises, unlike any of its rivals.

Zen Internet review: Full Fibre 100, 500 and 900

These full-fibre packages are based on the Openreach network, which is the network that serves the vast majority of the country. The prices are more expensive than the CityFibre connections (see below), which is doubtless reflective of the wholesale price Openreach charges broadband providers such as Zen compared to those of CityFibre.

The choice of speed largely boils down to how heavily you’re going to use the connection and price. Only families likely to have several HD streams going simultaneously or wanting massive game downloads in the quickest time possible really need the 900Mbits/sec lines.

The FRITZ!Box 7530 is provided to customers on these tariffs too.

Zen Internet review: CityFibre Full Fibre 100, 500, 900 and Max

If you’re lucky enough to live in an area covered by CityFibre, you’ll not only benefit from cheaper broadband prices (compared to Openreach areas), but faster speeds too.

CityFibre’s speeds go all the way up to 2.3Gbits/sec and all its lines are symmetrical, meaning you get the same upload speed as you do download. That’s not the case with Openreach, where the Full Fibre 900 connection only has a 105Mbits/sec upload speed.

The downside is that CityFibre’s coverage is nowhere near as comprehensive as Openreach’s.

Zen Internet review: Coverage

When it comes to full fibre, Openreach now covers around half of the homes in the country (17m properties), whereas Zen’s other network partner, CityFibre, only reaches around 4m homes so far. That means you’ll be one of the fortunate few if you can benefit from Zen’s best full-fibre prices and speeds. However, new deals being signed with other fibre providers means Zen’s coverage should expand further in 2025.

For almost everyone else, the Unlimited Fibre connections delivered over fibre-to-the-cabinet connections will be the limit of your ambitions for the time being.

Zen Internet review: Performance and customer satisfaction

Zen’s earned a rich reputation for customer service and that’s evident again here too. Only the slimmest of margins prevent it from claiming the customer service crown, with a 61.9% satisfaction score only topped by Vodafone’s 62.4%, meaning Zen has to settle for a Highly Commended in this category.

It was the outright winner for speed, though, with a 95% satisfaction score – the only provider to score 90% or more in this category. It’s also the most highly rated provider for value for money, with 93% of surveyed customers giving Zen the thumbs up.

Reliability has dipped sharply in this year’s survey, though, with only 42% of Zen customers praising its dependability, the worst score of any provider on test. Given this has been one of Zen’s strongholds for many years, we hope this was a temporary aberration.

It’s worth noting that most Zen customers have remained loyal to the company. Almost three quarters of its customers have been with the firm for more than two years, with 28% hanging in there for more than five years.

Zen Internet review: Verdict

Zen Internet’s consistent strong performance in broadband surveys is reassuring, and this year is no exception. It’s rated top for speed and value, and only a smidgen away from claiming the customer service crown. Only that out-of-character reliability score raises a question mark.

Methodology

Unless otherwise stated, all figures are drawn from a comprehensive survey conducted by Expert Reviews in December 2024, targeting a representative sample of 2,162 UK residents aged 18 and over. This sample size allows for statistically significant analysis across eight internet service providers, ensuring confidence in the results.

The figures are derived from responses to six survey questions targeting value for money, speed, customer service and reliability. We then take an average of these scores to produce an overall satisfaction metric, which we use to name our winner and runner-up.

Written by

Barry Collins

Barry Collins has been a technology writer, editor and broadcaster for more than 25 years. He was assistant editor of The Sunday Times’ technology section, editor of PC Pro and has written for more than a dozen different publications and websites over the years. He’s made regular TV and radio appearances as a technology pundit, including on BBC Newsnight, ITV News and Sky News. Now a senior contributor at Forbes.com, he also presents and produces tech-related podcasts.  

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