Zen Internet

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Zen Internet Ltd
Type Limited
Founded (1995)
Headquarters Rochdale, England
Key people Richard Tang (Managing Director)
Gary Hough (Operations Manager)
Stuart Birchall (Technical Services Director)
Iain Johnstone (Sales & Communications Manager)
Industry Internet
Products Internet Services
Employees 234 (Feb 2007)
Website http://www.zen.co.uk

Zen Internet is an Internet Service Provider (ISP) based in Rochdale in Greater Manchester, England.

Contents

[edit] History

Founded in 1995 by Managing Director Richard Tang, Zen Internet was one of the first Internet Service Providers in the UK. Zen began by providing Internet access to schools and small businesses in the Rochdale area. It has since moved from 2 employees in 1995 to 209 at the start of 2006 and in 2004 achieved an annual turnover of £14.2 million along with a customer base of more than 53,000 broadband users nationwide. The company now provides a full range of services to Internet users, from DSL broadband Internet access and hosting packages to Web site design and e-commerce solutions.[1]

Author Rachel Bridge, Enterprise Editor of The Sunday Times, has included Zen's Managing Director, Richard Tang in her book, "My Big Idea - 30 Successful Entrepreneurs Reveal How They Found Inspiration." The book reveals how Tang's early insight led to the creation of a company that has experienced impressive growth whilst providing premier levels of Internet services for businesses and residential users.

Sir Richard Branson claims that the book:

"Brilliantly captures the challenge of turning a big idea into a successful business...".

Tang's challenge began through a discussion with his brother in a pub about the Internet. A smart business decision to invest in this new technology then followed. Over the years he discovered that businesses valued excellent customer support over cheaper deals. From this came the creation of the Zen ethos, investing in the latest technology with an excellent core network, while staying true to the values of quality, reliability and customer service. The Zen core network can handle capacity ahead of demand, and this highlights that the company has an ambitious yet achievable future vision led by Tang.

This is also reflected in the development of the new Zen headquarters, still in Tang's hometown of Rochdale. This will cater for the projected growth of the company and provides evidence of the financial stability of Zen. The success of the ISP was emphasised in this year’s awards when Zen swept the board at the 2006 ISPAs (Internet Services Providers' Association) winning three awards in the Best Uncontended Service, Best Heavy Business Broadband and Best Business ISP categories amongst other industry awards.

Bridge's book looks at how the company has been brought to this highly successful level, the challenges Tang faced and why Zen can be clearly considered true to its mission statement, to provide the best ISP service in the UK.

[edit] Market position

Zen has always focused on the UK business market although it does have a large consumer broadband customer base.

[edit] Products

Zen have five main product areas:

  • Leased Lines
    • Access (Up to 2Mbps)
    • Ethernet (2Mbps - 1Gbps)
    • Private WAN
  • Web Solutions
    • Web Site Design and Build
    • Search Engine Promotion
    • Intranet/Extranet Site Design and Build

Zen are believed to be launching a VoIP product during 2007

[edit] Technology

Powered by Redback, Foundry, Juniper and Cisco hardware the Zen core network spans over 5 POPs, two in their home town of Rochdale, Telecity in Manchester, Telehouse in London, and recently expanding into the US at TelX in New York connected via an STM-16 trans-Atlantic link provided by Hibernia Atlantic [2].

They are a member of the major UK peering points including LINX, LoNAP, ManNAP and in New York they are members of NYIIX and PAIX. In 2005 they unbundled the Rochdale exchange followed by the Bury, Oldham and Blackfriars exchanges in 2006 to provide an LLU service to local residents and Businesses; they are also working with the BBC to provide access to the BBC's multicast broadcasting trials [3].[4]

[edit] Awards

  • ISPA Awards 2007 [5]
    • Winner - Best Business Email
    • Winner - Best Dial Up
    • Commended - Best Business ISP
  • Sunday Times' Test Bench [6]
    • Winner - UK's Best Broadband 'Unsurpassed service and reliability'
  • PC Pro Awards 2006 [7]
    • Winner - Best Broadband ISP
    • Highly Commended - Best Web Host
  • Mac User Awards 2006 [8]
    • Highly Commended - ISP of the Year
  • The ISPAs 2006 [9]
    • Winner - Best Business ISP
    • Winner - Best Heavy Business Broadband
    • Winner - Best Uncontended Service
    • Finalist - Best Light Business Broadband
  • PC Pro Awards 2005 [10]
    • Winner - Best Broadband ISP
  • The ISPAs 2005 [11]
    • Winner - Best Light Business Broadband
  • PC Pro Awards 2004 [12]
    • Winner - Best Broadband ISP
  • Review Centre Best in Class Awards [13]
    • Best ISP of 2004

[edit] External link

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../z/e/n/Zen_Internet_0ecd.html"