But in the real world what would you be doing to notice that difference, the only thing I can think of is downloading torrents (apart from speed tests), and then anybody else using the same connection would have a poor service and this is where PN traffic prioritisation comes in, ensuring more time critical traffic is given priority.

Download/uploading to the cloud is often limited by the cloud provider or websites/servers and as the OP is interested in gaming ping times I doubt it will make any difference at all.

Worth pointing out yes, but at the end of the day does it really make any difference, I don't think so. I wonder if it's the traffic prioritisation causing the minor slow down, you need somebody with the pro add on getting full sync to see what they get.

From what i have read here and other places it seems that it's a combination of both having a second IP profile and the way that their traffic management works, And that this also does affect normal HTTP downloads too, If their PRO addon make much if any of a difference there doesn't seem to much info available

The idea of prioritised traffic may be good for some, ie families who live on the net, many devices connected at the same time all consuming bandwidth,should someone want to use a latency sensitive app ,
But where you have just the one device connected at any time, it's of no real benefit, as your gamer will know not to use wireless or home plugs etc, or have a torrent downloading/seeding whilst playing a game online, that's basic common sense or should be,
Also if none of plusnets customers on their FTTC products are able to reach those speeds advertised then they should consider perhaps changing the upto 76mbps to upto 72-73mbps, I mention that because i'm sure that a certain percentage of customers are supposed to be able to get the advertised speeds, ?

This is true, when im gaming i make sure nothing else is connected to the internet. The connection is 100% gaming only when i game. So i don't think the prioritization is of any use for me in this case. Top speeds im not really interested in for the sake of a few Mbps, just ping times and how the network is routed. Seeing as i'm on such a long line (1000m give or take 100m) perhaps an isp who uses the speed profile would cause the DLM (or whatever the abbreviation is) to be less aggressive with interleaving on my line as it doesn't require it to be as stable?

What were the ISP's who definatley use the 'speed' profile again? Zen and i think someone said plusnet?

Also, what is congestion like on Zen if anyone knows, whats their network traffic routing like (as i said before, with BT my traffic gets routed through BT from london to london via sheffield which makes no sense to me. (i also read somewhere that a few people seem to have trouble with zen when they get their phone line with them aswel, no trouble when their line is with someone else but alot of problems once the line is also provided from zen, no idea why).

With being so far from the cab, there is potential for there to be interference, ect, although it could also be free from issues that could cause DLM to act ,
The Openreach GEA DLM speed profile is said to be the profile for gamers, But what that actually means, in the differences between the 3 dlm profile options the jury is still out on that,
But i would hope that it would only apply small amounts of interleave, and where possible lower sync instead of adding interleave
If speed isn't important to you, then you maybe better off with a partial LLU ASDL product, that can be configured to stay on fast path & no DLM , there are quite few small isp's offering TT wholesale products,all are 1mth contracts
But it would also depend on how close to the exchange your are , as to what sort of speeds you would see, the latency side of things may differ, but that's also down to where you live a lot of the time, generally the lower your base latency @ the 1st hop after your router ,is the better
As for routing /peering apart from asking a customer or customers of the isp's for tracerts there is no real way of telling what sort of latency figures you may see on the various ISP's , but i would be surprised if the results weren't a mixed bag, unless you wanted to pay a lot of money , as there are a few ISP's out there that could provide better results on that front, but the cost is prohibitive for residential customers ,

Edited by tommy45 (Sat 19-Apr-14 13:18:36)

im closer to the exchange then i am my cabinet (about 900m from exchange but i guess my line still runs to the cab then to me) in total about 2000m, i remember before on BE i was getting about 12-16 down and 1.8 up with pings of around 15ms to BBC where as on infinity im getting 28ms, I don't really want to go back to ADSL though, as speed is not the most important factor for me, but it is still important to the extent im not willing to half my speeds for better ping times, as gaming DL's for DLC and new games etc, streaming are becoming larger and larger.

What makes no sense to be, is my cab is 1000m away from me, and inbetween me and my cab, there are 5-6 other cabinets....i have no idea why and i absolutely HATE who ever decided that it was logical to put me (and my road) on that cabinet)

Edited by deleted (Sat 19-Apr-14 13:18:34)

When BT designed & planned the copper loops it was done for voice not broadband, thats why many lines don't take the shortest most direct route,
The downside with ADSL is the upload speed or lack of it, when i was on BE i got 16.5 /1.8 annex M my base latency was 20ms, on ukonline it was 10-13ms to the exchange equipment both Fastpath my speed on adsl2+ was 19.5/1.2 on be 17.5/1.3 (adsl2+)
When i switched from BE to BE wholesale my speeds dropped and ping increased to 27ms and was still supposed to be fastpath with the same margin (after i got them changed from defaults)

Lots of different factors can have an impact on latency, BT routing can be a bit weird, people report that their traffic from London get routed via Sheffield before reaching it's destination in London, Has your latency with BT always been 28ms since installation ?

Edited by tommy45 (Sat 19-Apr-14 13:34:42)

no, used to be 16-18ms rarely ever going above 20 at a max. it was like that for well over a year then for about the last 8 months its been at the 26-28ms mark consistantly

DLM by the sounds of it Could be due to your line being impacted by crosstalk or other types of interference, Shame we don't know which GEA DLM profile BT use my guess would be either standard or the stable option,

unfortunately there's no real way of knowing in advance what advantages if any the Speed profile would offer you or if it would make any significant differences at all
Thank's to the secretive way that BT tends to work

In reply to a post by Hoolay88:

What makes no sense to be, is my cab is 1000m away from me, and inbetween me and my cab, there are 5-6 other cabinets....i have no idea why and i absolutely HATE who ever decided that it was logical to put me (and my road) on that cabinet)

It's quite possible they are not BT cabinets, could Virgin, CCTV, Mobile, there are all sorts of cabinets.

i believe sky are working on new features for the pro package which will allow profile customization from the users end as they are taking advice from BE staff and customers, i wonder if this will be the option to chose between standard, stable and speed profiles...this is what is making me possibly want to go towards sky if this is what they;re working on, however if its not then i may go with zen, but i cannot seem to find just normal customers who can supply me with trace routes and ping graphs just for a little look (i know each line is different but i just would like to have a look and see) the only things i can find are reviews and from experience, reviews are usually provided by either people who think their companies/providers can do no wrong so give them 5*s across the board regardless or by people who have been unfortunate to have had issues that may have been due to BT network and out of their control, and give them 1* across the board, i just want to know what the middle guys think of zen who have no bias just because its their provider etc