Zen Internet - Offering ADSL services
Here is some information from Zen Internet about their ADSL product. Anyone considering ADSL would be well advised to consider this as an alternative to BT's offering, since BT seem to be unable to support or install their service properly.
Press Release
Overview:
In the UK, there are some long waiting lists for ADSL, not least at British Telecom, and there are ill-defined 'exclusion zones' where telephone exchanges won't be upgraded to carry the service for a year or more. (So Coronation Street is in, but Brookside was left out). However, there are no delays on orders placed with a supplier like Zen Internet and up to the minute reports on availability for any location are immediately available.
Zen and the art of ADSL acceleration
With the promise of up to 40 times faster Internet access and no call charges, ADSL became UK buzz acronym of the year in 2000 and provoked plenty of demand. But many months on from its launch, consumers trying to order the 'always on' broadband service are still being asked to form an orderly queue... and wait.
Peter Bradshaw, Internet analyst at Merrill Lynch, says there's little doubt that people want ADSL access - but it remains largely unobtainable in practice.
ADSL is delivered over existing copper-wire telephone lines and it's natural that potential customers should look first to network owners British Telecom when they want to order the service.
According to the Daily Telegraph: More than 100,000 hopefuls pre-registered with British Telecom's 'Openworld' for ADSL service and were promised that the backlog would be cleared by November, 2000.
But BT's deadline moved... first to January 2001, and then to what they said was a "more realistic" March.
More recently, the BT Openworld Web site has suggested that the best way to get broadband access as quickly as possible is simply to register an interest and then "rest assured".
It doesn't mention that ADSL is more readily available elsewhere.
Worse, it implies that other suppliers all have long waiting lists too.
Although ADSL is delivered over standard BT telephone lines, and through ADSL-enabled BT exchanges, BT Openworld isn't the only ISP offering the service. Other providers specialising in ADSL, like Business ISP Zen Internet, have no waiting list.
Zen's "Instant Karma" catchline refers to the transforming nature of the service itself, not their delivery time, but they say that most installations have been provided in 7-10 days.
All ISPs supplying ADSL rely on line suitability checks by BT and a visit to the premises, but it is possible to get into the fast lane without a diversion into BT long-stay parking.
Check availability
Anyone can find out if they are close enough to an ADSL-enhanced exchange to get the UK's first affordable broadband service by entering a telephone number or postcode using the online checker at zenadsl.com
Order Online
Zen Internet is currently the only ISP in the UK taking ADSL orders online.
Or telephone Zen on 01706 713714