Plusnet fibre broadband for gamin

Hi guys, I need help! I'm currently looking to upgrade my sky internet (up to 16mb) to a 38mb fibre broadband. I was wondering whether anyone here has any experience with plusnet for gaming and whether anyone has any advice as I haven't been able to find a definitive answer for my question.

If you're enquiring about latency, it's more a factor of the quality of your connection and not 'actively' influenced by the ISP/ CP.

If you have a noisy line or frequent sync drops, the DLM will instigate interleaving and this will increase latency for example. So optimising your own wiring will be advantageous (as it would with any connection type). Throughput rates won't influence your experience as these don't need to be high for gaming.

This is a factor I'm concerned with moving to fibre. I current achieve a 14ms latency between my modem and my ISP on an ADSL2+ service and have done as much as possible to influence this, includingI having fastpath enabled. I don't think the end user has any say over the latter with vDSL.

Paul

Edited by deleted (Thu 21-Aug-14 10:45:07)

On the one hand, that's true up to a point. With fibre you're affected by Openreach's DLM and the quality of the connection from your house to the cabinet.

But from the exchange to the destination, you're in the hands of the ISP and the quality of the backhaul and the peering to the internet and therefore very influenced by the ISP.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

But from the exchange to the destination, you're in the hands of the ISP and the quality of the backhaul and the peering to the internet and therefore very influenced by the ISP.

Of course, maybe I worded my response poorly. What I was trying to convey is that the ISP doesn't actively alter the end users connection to alter the latency characteristics of it. That being the case, that attribute of your connection will be the same no matter what ISP you use. You get what your given and have little influence over it through choice of ISP or any other factor.

Paul

Bear in mind if you traceroute any location, the first hop is your router, the second hop is your ISP. It's easy to see where the responsibility for high pings lies.

[edit] traceroute, I mean.

Edited by deleted (Thu 21-Aug-14 13:24:52)

Plusnet tbb BQMs. Mine in my sig.

Plusnet has 20 gateways, and depending which you are on at any given time the latency can be different by a few ms. You can easily determine which you are on, and usually move to a different one by simply closing your PPP session and reopening.

C:\Users\Bob>ping www.bbc.co.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.69] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 212.58.244.69: bytes=32 time=13ms TTL=55
Reply from 212.58.244.69: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=55
Reply from 212.58.244.69: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=55
Reply from 212.58.244.69: bytes=32 time=14ms TTL=55

Ping statistics for 212.58.244.69:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 13ms, Maximum = 14ms, Average = 13ms

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.68]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 15 ms 14 ms 26 ms lo0-central10.ptw-ag02.plus.net [195.166.128.196
]
3 14 ms 16 ms 13 ms link-b-central10.ptw-gw02.plus.net [212.159.2.15
0]
4 16 ms 13 ms 14 ms xe-0-2-0.ptw-cr02.plus.net [212.159.0.250]
5 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms ae2.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.4]
6 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms kingston-gw.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.6]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 17 ms 13 ms 13 ms ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
10 15 ms 14 ms 14 ms 132.185.255.149
11 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms bbc-vip113.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.68]

Trace complete.

That's on Fast Path. As has been suggested, your ISP has no basic control over whether you are on Fast Path or Interleaved, and on some connections it can fluctuate. At least with the Openreach DLM it does revert to Fast Path from Interleaved if there has been a noise burst that doesn't recur, whereas the BT Wholesale ADSLx DLM used to stay on Interleaving once invoked.

Sky FTTC is also subject to the Openreach DLM. It is only "LLU" from the exchange to Sky.

If the DLM adds interleaving the normal initial latency step is 8ms up.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 21-Aug-14 13:31:59)

PIng? Or tracert?

Yes aware of that thanks. For the benefit of the OP, if he's not, you can find this information by performing a 'tracert' via a Command Prompt (Windows PC). You'll need the endpoint URL/ IP address.

Paul

Edited by deleted (Thu 21-Aug-14 13:05:26)

Thanks for sharing, that's very interesting.

Must admit that I've not bothered to perform a tracert on my line but, this has piqued my interest.

Paul

Yeah, tracert

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Bear in mind if you traceroute any location, the first hop is your router, the second hop is your ISP. It's easy to see where the responsibility for high pings lies.

[edit] traceroute, I mean.

Partly true, but also .... There are several hops after the second that are still within your ISP, and that can make a big difference. My routing on BT from Winchester goes via Sheffield before leaving the BT network in London. This adds around 8ms to my ping.

I'm guessing the Sheffield from the .sf. in the acc2-xe-2-1-3.sf.21cn-ipp.bt.net, and guessing where it goes north from the times. I can't say whether PlusNet would route via their home town too ... I may well join them soon so perhaps I'll find out.

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1    <1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  192.168.1.254
                           <<< no interleaving
  2     7 ms     5 ms     5 ms  172.16.14.14       
  3     *        *        *     Request timed out.
                           <<< reached BT by now
  4     8 ms     8 ms     8 ms  213.120.158.173 
                          <<< add 4ms for the journey north
  5    12 ms    12 ms    12 ms  217.32.145.106  
  6    12 ms    11 ms    11 ms  217.41.169.219
  7    12 ms    11 ms    11 ms  217.41.169.109
  8    12 ms    44 ms    11 ms  acc2-xe-2-1-3.sf.21cn-ipp.bt.net [109.159.255.227]
                            <<< and now it comes south again
  9    19 ms    18 ms    24 ms  core2-te-0-13-0-12.ilford.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.251.187] 
 10    16 ms    16 ms    46 ms  peer2-xe3-0-0.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.254.223] 
                           <<< leaves BT 
 11    17 ms    16 ms    16 ms  194.74.65.42
 12     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 13    19 ms    21 ms    17 ms  ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
 14    20 ms    18 ms    18 ms  132.185.255.165
 15    21 ms    21 ms    20 ms  fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]

Edited by StephenTodd (Thu 21-Aug-14 14:55:01)

Excellent post!

If you do migrate to PlusNet, it would be great if you could perform a similar tracert and post up the results here.

Paul

I somehow suspect there are other Plusnet customers who could do the tracert right now

Probably mainly in the Plusnet forum .

Hang on, you're on Plusnet fibre. You could tracert 212.58.246.104

I posted a BBC tracert earlier .

C:\Users\Bob>tracert 212.58.246.104

Tracing route to fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 3 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms lo0-central10.ptw-ag02.plus.net [195.166.128.196]
3 13 ms 14 ms 13 ms link-b-central10.ptw-gw02.plus.net [212.159.2.150]
4 13 ms 16 ms 12 ms xe-0-2-0.ptw-cr02.plus.net [212.159.0.250]
5 12 ms 13 ms 13 ms ae2.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.4]
6 13 ms 14 ms 13 ms kingston-gw.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.6]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 49 ms 14 ms 14 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
9 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms 132.185.255.165
10 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]

Trace complete.

It would be nice to get someone with Sky fibre to also post a tracert.

mine from plusnet

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\System32>tracert 212.58.246.104

Tracing route to fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.1
2 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms lo0.10.central10.ptw-bng01.plus.net [195.166.128
.170]
3 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms irb.10.ptw-cr01.plus.net [84.93.249.1]
4 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms kingston-gw.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.6]
5 * * * Request timed out.
6 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
7 12 ms 12 ms 11 ms 132.185.255.165
8 11 ms 11 ms 11 ms fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]

Trace complete.

C:\Windows\System32>

I've been on Plusnet Fibre since November 2013 and I've been known to dabble in a spot of Battlefield every now and then. My two sons also play a lot of Xbox and PC based online gaming and have seen a major improvement with ping times and game performance since moving from ADSL to VDSL.
I was with Pipex when I first moved to this village over 10 years ago. The connection degraded considerably with every take over internally at Pipex until I could stand it no more and jumped ship to Pipex.

I've played online games whilst my daughter has been streaming HD movies on the main TV (Netflix via Google Chromecast), one of my lads has been streaming a movie via his Xbox and the other lad Facebooking/YouTubing in another room and I have never seen a buffering video feed, increase in ping time of any real note. There are glitches, but those have been few and far between.

I have a fixed IP address, running the stock BT modem, TP Link AC1750 Dual Band Gigabit Router, main PC's are connected via Gigabit switch, with everything else being run off 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi. TV (YouView box) + Xbox fed via TP Link Tl-WA854RE WiFi extender.
Xbox does suffer a bit with latency due to normal WiFi performance, but if they think the ping times are affecting the game, they'll just plug a cable into a spare port on the switch. Only had to do that a couple of times in the past year or so.
PC Gaming always done via ethernet...

I believe PlusNet don't do traffic shaping as such, it's more a QoS and it appears to give good priority to my gaming traffic.

The boys will run TeamTalk & Skype at the same time as playing on the PC now we are on Fibre (couldn't do that on ADSL) with no performance hit in game.

You might pay peanuts for PlusNet, but you definitely don't get Monkeys. Think Apes with attitude along the lines of Dawn of the Planet of....

Only issue I've ever had with my line since moving to Fibre was a couple of BT line faults. Am about 140m from my cabinet but sadly, 40m of that is aluminium lines back to the cabinet and 60m of overhead lines next to overhead power lines.

I've tried so hard to kick the bottom out of my connection but I haven't managed to break it or even stress it yet. Am averaging 240GB of traffic a month, with a peak of 450GB, the majority of which is streamed content (music/radio and TV).

Zero worries about using PlusNet for gaming...

Forgot to say, for UK based servers I see sub 16ms ping times on most servers.
For Overclocked.Net servers based in Chicago, I see sub 120ms ping times.
When I do see ping times increase, it's usually on low cost/budget game servers and not down to the route between host/server.

I'll try and post some Tracerts when I get my PC back from my daughter... doing homework and not gaming/streaming I might add. Despite the apparent gloat of streaming/gaming in this house, online time is earned

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Hang on, you're on Plusnet fibre. You could tracert 212.58.246.104

fast path in leicester

C:\Windows\system32>tracert 212.58.246.104

Tracing route to fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms home.gateway [192.168.1.253]
2 17 ms 13 ms 13 ms lo0-central10.pcl-ag05.plus.net [195.166.128.186
]
3 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms link-a-central10.pcl-gw01.plus.net [212.159.2.17
6]
4 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms xe-1-2-0.pcl-cr01.plus.net [212.159.0.208]
5 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms ae1.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.0]
6 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms kingston-gw.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.6]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
9 15 ms 14 ms 15 ms 132.185.255.165
10 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Hang on, you're on Plusnet fibre. You could tracert 212.58.246.104

I used to be on fastpath with 80/20 sync speeds, with a 350-400m line. Crosstalk from increased takeup seems to have gradually hit me, and pushed me over the threshold for DLM, so I now sync at around 72/20 with FEC+interleaving turned on. The added interleaving has added 8ms latency, while FEC has stolen about 10% of my bandwidth.

$ tracert 212.58.246.104

Tracing route to fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     1 ms     1 ms     1 ms  192.168.0.1
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3    25 ms    24 ms    39 ms  lo0-central10.ptw-ag04.plus.net [195.166.128.194]
  4    24 ms    24 ms    24 ms  link-a-central10.ptw-gw01.plus.net [212.159.2.156]
  5    24 ms    23 ms    35 ms  xe-7-2-0.ptw-cr01.plus.net [212.159.0.252]
  6    24 ms    24 ms    23 ms  kingston-gw.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.6]
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8    25 ms    25 ms    25 ms  ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
  9    25 ms    25 ms    25 ms  132.185.255.165
 10    25 ms    25 ms    24 ms  fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]

Trace complete.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

It would be nice to get someone with Sky fibre to also post a tracert.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600]
(c) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>tracert 212.58.246.104

Tracing route to fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms 1 ms SkyRouter.Home [192.168.0.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 12 ms 15 ms 15 ms 0278093a.bb.sky.com [2.120.9.58]
4 10 ms 15 ms 11 ms ntl-ge2-9.prt0.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.238.189]

5 * * * Request timed out.
6 10 ms 9 ms 10 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
7 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 132.185.255.165
8 10 ms 10 ms 9 ms fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]

Trace complete.

Sky Fibre 40/10

Another on Sky Fibre on 80/20 fastpath with a line fault:

Tracing route to fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 2 ms 1 ms 192.168.100.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 28 ms 32 ms 24 ms 02780a02.bb.sky.com [2.120.10.2]
4 18 ms 18 ms 22 ms ntl-ge2-9.prt0.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.238.189]

5 * * * Request timed out.
6 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
7 26 ms 18 ms 18 ms 132.185.255.165
8 18 ms 18 ms 17 ms fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]

Trace complete.

Good to see all these results. Here's mine performed on a wireless fastpath ADSL2+ connection:

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.246.93]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms home.gateway.home.gateway [192.168.1.254]
2 82 ms 101 ms 13 ms 62.72.148.135
3 14 ms 12 ms 13 ms 62.72.134.73
4 14 ms 15 ms 12 ms 62.72.134.73
5 15 ms 42 ms 13 ms te0-1-0-0.cr15.tn5.bb.daisyplc.net [62.72.137.2]

6 13 ms 12 ms 13 ms daisy-te4-3-503.thdo.bbc.co.uk [62.72.139.66]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 15 ms 16 ms 13 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
9 16 ms 14 ms 13 ms 132.185.255.165
10 15 ms 15 ms 17 ms bbc-vip014.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.93]

Trace complete.

And from my server in the loft over a wired connection:

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.244.66]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms home.gateway.home.gateway [192.168.1.254]
2 11 ms 12 ms 12 ms 62.72.148.135
3 11 ms 12 ms 11 ms 62.72.134.73
4 12 ms 11 ms 11 ms 62.72.134.73
5 36 ms 34 ms 36 ms te0-1-0-0.cr15.tn5.bb.daisyplc.net [62.72.137.2]

6 37 ms 34 ms 34 ms daisy-te4-3-503.thdo.bbc.co.uk [62.72.139.66]
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 12 ms 13 ms 11 ms ae0.er01.telhc.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.109]
10 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms 132.185.255.149
11 11 ms 12 ms 12 ms bbc-vip111.telhc.bbc.co.uk [212.58.244.66]

Trace complete.

I'm in South Northamptonshire.

I'm now really interested to see what my vDSL results will be!

Paul

Edited by deleted (Thu 21-Aug-14 21:06:12)

In reply to a post by youngsyp:

I'm now really interested to see what my vDSL results will be!

Depends on which ISP

Ha ha, indeed!

Paul

Thanks for the reply mate, really boosted my confidence with it. My family has left me in charge of picking the next internet since its me who has the problem with it (because our upload is appalling (its 0.7mb) and I am always struggling in servers during peak hours typically having rubber banding and a huge latency (its been 2000ms) between my xbox and the connection). I found plusnet because its cheaper and has the best upload speeds, seemingly lower pings and latency levels and packet loss than others (according to what I've read) and its got a great upload. It also traffic manages but favours gaming which I love

Also, I've read everyone's replies although I'm new to the forum so I don't *really* know what half of you are talking about haha. But thank you very much for helping me out mate and to all the others who've replied.

In reply to a post by youngsyp:

If you're enquiring about latency, it's more a factor of the quality of your connection and not 'actively' influenced by the ISP/ CP.

If you have a noisy line or frequent sync drops, the DLM will instigate interleaving and this will increase latency for example.

Not true for everyone.

I think for some ISPs it's the opposite - I'm with BT and my ping jumps from 5ms on the 2nd hop to ~15ms to a good BBC server - That's pathetic bearing in mind the 2nd hop is the bRAS as-well. No interleaving.

It has done it since ADSL2+ as-well.

From what I've seen in tracerts, Plusnet mostly has good routing which is good for gamers. Not too sure about throughput at all times of day though.

Another thing - Throughput can be a major influence if you're in a busy household. For example if you're on a congested path (E.g. Your connection is at 80Mbps) and you can max the congested path out at 40Mbps, everything else will grind to a halt and your latency will shoot up.

How far away are you from your cabinet?


Edit: Here's a tracert with BT - 80/20 with no interleaving. I do get the feeling Plusnet's bRAS is located near the BT core because quite a lot of people see latencies of 13ms even on fastpath for their 2nd hop:

C:\Users\Chris>tracert bbc.co.uk

Tracing route to bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.103]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.5.14.254
2 6 ms 5 ms 5 ms 217.32.141.9
3 6 ms 5 ms 6 ms 217.32.140.238
4 8 ms 8 ms 8 ms host109-159-245-2.range109-159.btcentralplus.com
[109.159.245.2]
5 9 ms 9 ms 8 ms 213.120.182.67
6 9 ms 8 ms 8 ms 31.55.164.107
7 9 ms 9 ms 9 ms 109.159.248.87
8 15 ms 12 ms 16 ms core1-te0-2-5-0.ealing.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.24
8.0]
9 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms peer2-xe7-0-1.telehouse.ukcore.bt.net [109.159.2
52.41]
10 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms 194.74.65.42
11 * * * Request timed out.
12 14 ms 15 ms 15 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
13 16 ms 15 ms 16 ms 132.185.255.165
14 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms fmt-vip132.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.103]

Edited by chris6273 (Fri 22-Aug-14 03:58:27)

Here's my BT Infinity traceroute

C:\>tracert 212.58.246.104

Tracing route to 212.58.246.104 over a maximum of 30 hops

1 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 7 ms 7 ms 7 ms 217.41.217.13
5 11 ms 13 ms 10 ms 109.159.245.18
6 10 ms 10 ms 10 ms 213.120.182.65
7 19 ms 11 ms 16 ms 31.55.164.107
8 10 ms 16 ms 16 ms 109.159.248.61
9 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms 109.159.248.158
10 15 ms 18 ms 14 ms 109.159.254.118
11 14 ms 14 ms 15 ms 194.74.65.42
12 * * * Request timed out.
13 17 ms 21 ms 16 ms 132.185.254.93
14 17 ms 16 ms 24 ms 132.185.255.165
15 16 ms 16 ms 15 ms 212.58.246.104

Trace complete.

Commenting about the upload queries. My latency is 21ms to bbc (see post above) on BT Infinity. This does not impact upload; at least when using good software to good sites. I get around 18.5Mbps (was around 16Mbps before I unlocked the HG612 modem and turned off QoS). Where sites are or software are not good (eg single threaded upload), upload seems much more prone to serious slowdown in 'wrong' circumstances than download. For example, I find the TTB speedtest gives much more accurate (high) upload speeds than BT wholesale one; and some sites are seriously poor.

Also for reference; my BT Infinity latency is 21ms as I said before, and was around 19/30ms when I was interleaved (not my choice). When I was on BE ADSL2 my pings were 11ms (non interleaved) or 18ms (interleaved).

In reply to a post by chris6273:

Not true for everyone.

I think for some ISPs it's the opposite - I'm with BT and my ping jumps from 5ms on the 2nd hop to ~15ms to a good BBC server - That's pathetic bearing in mind the 2nd hop is the bRAS as-well. No interleaving.

It has done it since ADSL2+ as-well.

Of course it's not the case for everyone but in general, it is. And regardless of whether an ISP/ CP employs poor/ inefficient routing, I specifically mentioned 'actively' in my response. I.e. they'll not intentionally influence latency on a connection. It's a function of distance and process involved.

In reply to a post by chris6273:

From what I've seen in tracerts, Plusnet mostly has good routing which is good for gamers. Not too sure about throughput at all times of day though.

Would agree with this. It's what I've seen from research too.

In reply to a post by chris6273:

Another thing - Throughput can be a major influence if you're in a busy household. For example if you're on a congested path (E.g. Your connection is at 80Mbps) and you can max the congested path out at 40Mbps, everything else will grind to a halt and your latency will shoot up.

This would be the case for any further network usage. It's not isolated to gaming. As such, I would have thought it was obvious...
What I was eluding to is that, in general, a vDSL service would not have any issue supporting modern online gaming, due to the relative low bandwidth requirements to run the game as designed. For example, Battlefield 4 is rumoured to be supported on connections with bandwidth in the Kb/s range. The data packets just aren't very big.

As we all appreciate, network latency makes or breaks acceptable online gaming. OK, as well as netcode quality and tick rate when it comes to BF4!

Paul

Kaspersky internet security 2014 software will put latency shoot up. Disabled it will be lower latency.

Edited by adslmax (Fri 22-Aug-14 16:43:27)

adding to the mix 40/10 from pulse8broadband in Tongham, Surrey

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Kam>tracert 212.58.246.104

Tracing route to fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms home.gateway.home.gateway [192.168.1.254]
2 13 ms 13 ms 13 ms host-2-98-52-1.as13285.net [2.98.52.1]
3 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms host-78-151-225-153.static.as13285.net [78.151.2
25.153]
4 15 ms 14 ms 14 ms host-78-151-225-204.static.as13285.net [78.151.2
25.204]
5 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms host-78-144-11-195.as13285.net [78.144.11.195]
6 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms host-78-144-10-151.as13285.net [78.144.10.151]
7 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms bbc-pp-sov.as13285.net [78.144.5.1]
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
10 17 ms 17 ms 16 ms 132.185.255.165
11 16 ms 16 ms 16 ms fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]

Trace complete.

different not main stream provider for a good measure.

Talktalk are mainstream actually

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Talktalk are mainstream actually

Strange their rDNS isn't labelled, perhaps too many 'brands' on the same network.

Just for grins, my Plusnet connection, and I'm not far from the poster in Tongham (great brewery there). My connection is syncing at 52 / 9 with interleave on today.

C:\>tracert 212.58.246.104

Tracing route to fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms router.asus.com [192.168.40.1]
2 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms lo0.11.central11.ptw-bng01.plus.net [195.166.128.171]
3 22 ms 21 ms 22 ms irb.11.ptw-cr02.plus.net [84.93.249.18]
4 22 ms 22 ms 22 ms ae2.ptw-cr01.plus.net [195.166.129.4]
5 22 ms 21 ms 22 ms kingston-gw.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.6]
6 * * * Request timed out.
7 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms ae0.er01.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [132.185.254.93]
8 23 ms 23 ms 24 ms 132.185.255.165
9 23 ms 23 ms 23 ms fmt-vip133.cwwtf.bbc.co.uk [212.58.246.104]

Trace complete.

I would consider dropping to 40/10 to get fast path back, you have 20% extra sync speed but the higher latency slows down your tcp ramp up, so in all likely hood 40/10 will probably be faster. Problem is no 40/10 on plusnet anymore

Talk talk are but pulse8broadband arent

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

I would consider dropping to 40/10 to get fast path back, you have 20% extra sync speed but the higher latency slows down your tcp ramp up, so in all likely hood 40/10 will probably be faster. Problem is no 40/10 on plusnet anymore

I don't need low latency as I mostly download or stream, and when I was on the 40/10 profile for a few days at migration I noticed the drop in speed. (About 10 Mbps less on download).

However you are confirmed as the error rates were zero on that profile, as monitored using DSLstats - and the interleaving was off for two whole months, but came back with the rain.

In reply to a post by Kamil:

Talk talk are but pulse8broadband arent

Who resell TT LLU whilst breaking ASA rules by advertising Down speeds at 24 Meg.

I dont mind as long as they supply me with great service at a decent price