Zen are screwed

The bloody news server is down *again*, this time there's no estimated fix
time, we've gotta use Legend's news server. *But* we're not supposed to use
the binary groups coz (according to the Zen "support" page) excessive
bandwidth usage may result in this backup service being withdrawn.
It's now 16:30 on a Friday afternoon, all the little Zennys will be
returning home now-ish and we won't get diddly squat from them until
lunchtime Monday. Their token Saturday support service seems to take
messages only, no problems apart from the most basic will actually be
attempted until late Monday morning.

They still only have *one* customer facing news server, in fact I suspect
they only have one news server period.

For what they are they're overpriced. I want to see compensation for this,
they invoice monthly and I want to see next month's bill dropped by at least
10%, that's proportionate to the amount of time I spend on Usenet. I won't
get it of course. Zen are a shoestring operation who've lucked out so far
but not any more. The cracks are begining to show.

One single bloody news server for their customers ?? I'm willing to bet
small but vital parts of my anatomy they've only got one newsmaster too, who
either doesn't know his job or is under resourced, bad scene either way.
I'll give good odds this gentleman is on holiday, which is why they won't
give us any idea when the "massive" hardware failure will be resolved. I'll
give better odds he's the only one who knows how to run their news service
with no cross training to colleagues and no documentation.

Congrats Mr Zen NewsMaster, you've just lost your bosses one customer.

Draxen wrote...

>One single bloody news server for their customers ??

Claranews, only £30.00 p/a.
http://www.claranet.co.uk/homeaccess...laranews.phtml

Fu-Berlin, now individual.net, totally free.
http://news.cis.dfn.de/ http://news.individual.net/

hth.
--
Mike

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 16:52:05 +0100 and in article
<(E-Mail Removed)>, Monty said...
> Better watch it though or we will be having the Zen lovers breathing
> down our necks and calling us wingers etc but my God I am all for
> calling a spade a spade especially when paying out nearly thirty quid
> a month .

You're not very good when it comes to the market are you Ron? If you
feel that Zen is not meeting your needs, then the free-market allows you
to take your business elsewhere. The market will then dictate whether
Zen lives or dies.

I suggest that Zen is obviously not to your needs, and that you take
your business elsewhere (admittedly this is limited seeing as you've
alienated so many people at other ISPs).

--
CB

"HRH The Lord Buckley" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...

<snip>:

: > For what we are paying Zen each month all aspects of the
: > service should be working 24/7 no if's no but's plus if Claranet can
: > provide 24/7 support on a 0845 number so Zen should be able to also .
: > Monty .
:
: You don't need 24/7 telephone support. Nor do most people in this ng.
: We are intelligent enough to use e-mail/usenet to get our enquiry
: resolved by going straight to the server bod's rather than a front line
: support person who doesn't really know exactly what is going on.

That is assuming of course that your email, usenet and in fact, general
internet, is actually working...

D

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 19:09:00 +0100 and in article <bf9hh3$vr8$1
@news.ukfsn.org>, David Hearn said...
> "HRH The Lord Buckley" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> <snip>:
>
> : > For what we are paying Zen each month all aspects of the
> : > service should be working 24/7 no if's no but's plus if Claranet can
> : > provide 24/7 support on a 0845 number so Zen should be able to also .
> : > Monty .
> :
> : You don't need 24/7 telephone support. Nor do most people in this ng.
> : We are intelligent enough to use e-mail/usenet to get our enquiry
> : resolved by going straight to the server bod's rather than a front line
> : support person who doesn't really know exactly what is going on.
>
> That is assuming of course that your email, usenet and in fact, general
> internet, is actually working...

Well, I don't need any of that working to be able to send an e-mail. My
7650 sends e-mail from my pop3 account perfectly. Even if that wasn't
working I still have either my modem + payg dialup account + fixed line
OR 7650 modem + GRRS/HSCSD + dialup account to get on the internet.


--
CB

HRH The Lord Buckley wrote:

> On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 16:52:05 +0100 and in article
> <(E-Mail Removed)>, Monty said...
>
>>Better watch it though or we will be having the Zen lovers breathing
>>down our necks and calling us wingers etc but my God I am all for
>>calling a spade a spade especially when paying out nearly thirty quid
>>a month .
>
>
> You're not very good when it comes to the market are you Ron? If you
> feel that Zen is not meeting your needs, then the free-market allows you
> to take your business elsewhere. The market will then dictate whether
> Zen lives or dies.
>
> I suggest that Zen is obviously not to your needs, and that you take
> your business elsewhere (admittedly this is limited seeing as you've
> alienated so many people at other ISPs).
>

The sooner they leave the better too........

Anyway,
I logged in today after returning from work and discovered no news
servers available, I checked Zen techhelp pages and it says the news
server has died and will need a complete rebuild.
They inform us that they supplied an alternative news feed.
I configured a new news group, subscribed to the news I want to read
all in under 5 mins, and I'm here now reading the moaners posts.
The news system will (hopefully) be rebuilt next week, till then this
temp news feed works a treat.

A message to the moaners, If you want binaries so you can download your
porn, pirated music, videos or ripped off software why not go somewhere
else and leave us in peace.

Message ends..........

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 17:01:31 +0100, HRH The Lord Buckley
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 16:52:05 +0100 and in article
><(E-Mail Removed)>, Monty said...
>> Better watch it though or we will be having the Zen lovers breathing
>> down our necks and calling us wingers etc but my God I am all for
>> calling a spade a spade especially when paying out nearly thirty quid
>> a month .
>
>You're not very good when it comes to the market are you Ron? If you
>feel that Zen is not meeting your needs, then the free-market allows you
>to take your business elsewhere. The market will then dictate whether
>Zen lives or dies.

Mmm, looks like the only ISP Ron liked was Zen.

What will he do now?

Rob.
rob at robertwoolley dot co dot uk

"HRH The Lord Buckley" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 17:15:33 +0100 and in article

>Clara only had the ability to splash out a _lot_ of money on new
>hardware because they changed their pricing for Claranews. Zen do not
>have this option, nor are they running a commercial news server.

In actual fact they *are* running a commercial news server, its running
costs are factored into the monthly subscription you pay. It is NOT a
freebie for many people it's an integral part of their Internet usage.
>> For what we are paying Zen each month all aspects of the
>> service should be working 24/7 no if's no but's plus if Claranet can
>> provide 24/7 support on a 0845 number so Zen should be able to also .
>> Monty .

>You don't need 24/7 telephone support. Nor do most people in this ng.
>We are intelligent enough to use e-mail/usenet to get our enquiry
>resolved by going straight to the server bod's rather than a front line
>support person who doesn't really know exactly what is going on.

You're right, domestic users don't need 24/7 but we do need something a damn
sight better than a minimum of a 72 hour turnaround before someone even
*attempts* to fix the damn thing. Based on previous experience with I'll be
pleasantly surprised if it's fixed within 5 days but realistically I know
it'll be 7 to 10 days before any sort of service is resumed.

Zen operate like this is 1993 and not 2003. ISPs are big business these
days, not just the purview of dateless geeks and ageing hippies. The cozy
one-big-happy-family feel of the pre dot.com days is long over, Zen know
this, it's reflected in the price they charge and the distinct lack of
concessions to subscribers when things do pear shaped.

you need to control yourself. Zen do have more than one newserver, have a
look at http://news.zen.net.uk where it explains that they provide a MANAP
feed server etc.

Erm, that would be Dave Reader (undone) at Zen's core Technical Team. I
don't know if he's the only person, but he IS suitably qualified, and has
managed to fix it on previous occasions.

You might want to have a read of
http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthre...&o=#Post796886
before pointing the fingers at people. They are trying their best, but you
need to remember that a news server is only provided as a complimentary
service by ISP's. There is no obligation for them to provide it, and quite
frankly we Zen users are quite lucky that we have a reasonably good news
service. As has been previously said, it was only designed for 300 - 400gb
transfer a day, and it is currently reaching about 600 - 700gb, and eating
600 quid disks on a regular basis. They have promised a fix, and I doubt
they are lying just to stop people from moaning.

And your bit saying that the newsmaster is on holiday is utter nonsense, he
is at work, because he posted updates to Zen.support when it was up, and to
the forums on ADSLguide.org.uk at 17:29pm.

Hope this helps

"Draxen" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:3f18141a$(E-Mail Removed)...
> The bloody news server is down *again*, this time there's no estimated fix
> time, we've gotta use Legend's news server. *But* we're not supposed to
use
> the binary groups coz (according to the Zen "support" page) excessive
> bandwidth usage may result in this backup service being withdrawn.
> It's now 16:30 on a Friday afternoon, all the little Zennys will be
> returning home now-ish and we won't get diddly squat from them until
> lunchtime Monday. Their token Saturday support service seems to take
> messages only, no problems apart from the most basic will actually be
> attempted until late Monday morning.
>
> They still only have *one* customer facing news server, in fact I suspect
> they only have one news server period.
>
> For what they are they're overpriced. I want to see compensation for this,
> they invoice monthly and I want to see next month's bill dropped by at
least
> 10%, that's proportionate to the amount of time I spend on Usenet. I won't
> get it of course. Zen are a shoestring operation who've lucked out so far
> but not any more. The cracks are begining to show.
>
> One single bloody news server for their customers ?? I'm willing to bet
> small but vital parts of my anatomy they've only got one newsmaster too,
who
> either doesn't know his job or is under resourced, bad scene either way.
> I'll give good odds this gentleman is on holiday, which is why they won't
> give us any idea when the "massive" hardware failure will be resolved.
I'll
> give better odds he's the only one who knows how to run their news service
> with no cross training to colleagues and no documentation.
>
> Congrats Mr Zen NewsMaster, you've just lost your bosses one customer.
>
>

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 22:52:41 +0100, "Draxen"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>You're right, domestic users don't need 24/7
But some may do if they suffer from the same illness/disability that I
do Myalgic Encephalopathy (M.E) one of the symptoms of this insidious
illness is that it greatly alters suffers sleep patterns and basically
I and many other sufferers are only coming alive at midnight which it
is now and going to bed at 6 and 7am when the rest of the country are
getting up. So if my connection goes down say now there is no way of
finding out what is wrong is it at my end or at Zen's there must be
away that Zen could notify customers for very little cost when
something goes wrong , and to have to wait over 24hrs like the other
weekend when all went down before finding out what was wrong is
scandalous .
>Zen operate like this is 1993 and not 2003. ISPs are big business these
>days, not just the purview of dateless geeks and ageing hippies. The cozy
>one-big-happy-family feel of the pre dot.com days is long over, Zen know
>this, it's reflected in the price they charge and the distinct lack of
>concessions to subscribers when things do pear shaped.
Got to agree for £ 27.99 a month the service should be second to none
and it ISN'T but has I have said many times it is strange that the
part of the service that collects money for Zen NEVER brakes down
maybe all the technicians spend their days making sure this never
happens .
Monty .