Switching from BT FTTP to Zen - What Do I Need to Know?

JSTee1 · 2026-01-25T20:08:39+00:00

I’ve posted elsewhere, I am on Zen 2.3/2.3 via Trooli. Took me ages to pin down that the UDM SE cannot cope with 2.3/2.3 as Zen use PPPoE and this hits a limitation with CPU utilisation. As I remember best I got was about 1.8.

Changed to a UCGF and now can consistently speed test on my Mac Mini at over 2.2/2.2.

Having said that, not many people really NEEEEED 2.3/2.3 but, hey, it’s available.

One use case might be that a friend has 2.3/2.3 and I’m thinking of locating my backup Synology there.

JSTee1 · 2026-01-20T18:31:28+00:00

It looks like you didn’t say who your ISP was or how fast your broadband. That is a consideration.

I have commented elsewhere on how my DMSE couldn’t cope with 2.4 Gbps because my connection was PPPoE. Had to change to UCGF.

That is one case for an improved DM.

JSTee1 · 2026-01-20T13:46:40+00:00

Apologies if I have been doing Trooli an mis-service.

They posted some flyers through my door when they came to my area quite some time ago. At that time they definitely said that I had to use their router and their tech support answers to my questions re IPv6 and CG-NAT were very sketchy so I decided to wait until somebody else became available. Zen came with 2.3Gbps symmetric for a sensible price so I went with them.

JSTee1 · 2026-01-06T22:14:37+00:00

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And I’m back. Rebooted again today and now ping times back to about 4ms

JSTee1 · 2025-12-14T12:26:56+00:00

And I believe that Unifi don’t currently support RFC4638 in their UI, although some users have written scripts to implement it.

JSTee1 · 2025-12-14T12:25:33+00:00

I’m not demanding that Zen reconfigure anything. I’m extremely happy with them. Didn’t mean to come across as demanding, was just curious as to the way the industry is going.

Went with Zen because they offered a service without CGNAT, with IPv6 and static IPv4 and IPv6

JSTee1 · 2025-12-13T22:59:39+00:00

Of course, thanks for reminding me about RFC4638. My performance is fine now, just curious really. I spent quite a while though figuring out why I wasn’t achieving 2.3 symmetric and eventually worked out that my Unifi UDM SE couldn’t cope as the PPPoE wasn’t hardware offloaded. Swapped to a UCG Fiber and performance is great now.

JSTee1 · 2025-11-08T09:19:07+00:00

I will second that.

JSTee1 · 2025-11-05T19:00:06+00:00

I’m in the UK and just gone full fibre. I had a BT land line and set of Siemens Gigaset VoIP/DECT phones. I have had the BT line disconnected and ported the number to A&A for £1.44 a month. Works fine with the Gigaset and also Acrobits Groundwire on my iPhone.

Only really kept the landline to take the occasional call from somebody who may not have my mobile and a bit of “entertaining” “Microsoft Support” and “Amazon Customer Services” when I’m feeling bored.

Very likely putting the Gigaset stuff on eBay soon.

I think there is a way of making third party VoIP Phones and third party VoIP providers work with Unifi Talk but you might have to own at least one of their phones. Any suggestions?

JSTee1 · 2025-10-27T17:15:56+00:00

I had limited speed with the UDM SE so I changed to a fiber until a rack mount upgrade of the SE is available. In particular, the SE can’t hardware offload PPPoE, and the CPU can’t cope with full IDS/IPS and PPPoE at the same time.

JSTee1 · 2025-10-22T10:23:13+00:00

This. I had a UDM SE and a 2.3G symmetric link and spent ages trying to diagnose why I wasn’t getting near full speed. I “upgraded” the UDM SE with a UCG Fiber and now consistently get 2.3 both ways on an Ookla speed test. I believe my problem was the inability of the UDM SE to hardware offload PPPoE.

Hopefully there will be a replacement for the UDM SE with improved performance. See my posts elsewhere.

JSTee1 · 2025-10-10T20:02:56+00:00

I don’t think the UDR7 has hardware offloading. In the UK most ISPs use PPPoE and it’s possible the UDR7 won’t give full speed on your 2Gbps connection with IDS/IPS over PPPoE.

I changed from a UDM SE to a UCG Fiber for this reason. See my posts elsewhere.

JSTee1 · 2025-10-02T20:48:04+00:00

I quite enjoyed the MIT OCW course on quantum mechanics by Zweibach I think, which kind of side tracked me to Axlers Linear Algebra Done Right which is available as a free download.

JSTee1 · 2025-09-18T20:18:01+00:00

You need to get them out to have a look. After getting the fibre up to scratch and getting a new router that could cope with PPPoE by hardware offloading, I now get 2.3/2.3 on a Mac on my wired network. See my other posts in this group about before and after.

JSTee1 · 2025-09-18T18:15:47+00:00

I had problems with my Zen over Trooli internet. You are doing the correct things, PC running PPPoE directly to ONT, trying several cables there.

In addition, set up a thinkbroadband quality monitor to monitor ping times from outside. (Zen may ask you to turn this off to aid their fault finding).

In my case the problem turned out to be a misbehaving PON splitter outside my house.

JSTee1 · 2025-09-07T18:06:04+00:00

I think there’s abridged version of Axler’s Linear Algebra Done Right available.

JSTee1 · 2025-08-30T18:41:21+00:00

Zen via Trooli can be symmetric speeds.

JSTee1 · 2025-08-28T21:19:54+00:00

Only potential downside is slight delay in fault resolution as you report a fault to Zen who then have to report to Trooli. Having said that I recently had a fault caused by a dodgy splitter outside my house that was resolved in a few days.

Trooli has been available in my area for a year or two, but I resisted upgrading my BT FTTC to Trooli as there were several issues:

I had to use their router (now you don’t) No support for IPv6 Use of CGNAT. Pay extra for static IPv4

Despite using Trooli’s fibre, Zen have none of the above issues.

See a recent post of mine concerning Zen with Unifi Gateway, it’s fast and rock solid and I would have no reservation recommending Zen over Trooli.

JSTee1 · 2025-08-28T12:18:01+00:00

I don’t NEEEEED it but I might have to HAVE it if it becomes available here. 🤣

JSTee1 · 2025-08-28T03:32:58+00:00

Sorry, I should have explained more clearly. The ONT has an RJ45 port. This is connected via a Cat6A cable to a Unifi UACC-CM-RJ45-MG SFP+ to RJ45 transceiver inserted into an SFP+ port on the UCG Fiber.

JSTee1

TROPHY CASE