How to check best broadband for gaming latency at my postcod

Is there a way I can check which isp in my area will give me the best gaming latency according to my postcode?

I am currently on virgin 200MB fibre and seem to always have the highest latency compared to my mates from other cities across UK.

Can anyone help? I am based just outside manchester in Knutsford.

In reply to a post by Supermax:

I am currently on virgin 200MB fibre and seem to always have the highest latency compared to my mates from other cities across UK.

What alternatives are available to you at your location: Openreach FTTP, Openreach FTTC, altnet FTTP? If FTTC, then what does broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com predict for your line speed?

Generally, FTTP beats FTTC. Otherwise there won't be much to choose between different providers on the same FTTP or FTTC network, especially if the gaming servers you're using are in London.

Ideally you need is an ISP whose network is uncongested at the time you play games. IMO the best way to do that is to buy from a more "business" oriented ISP whose usage is mainly during the day, and who doesn't oversell their capacity too much. But obviously that'll be more expensive than low-cost residential ISP.

In reply to a post by Supermax:

Can anyone help?

I see you're a new poster, apologies in advance if you already know this.

Unfortunately the word "fibre" is used by the internet industry to mean speed, instead of the technology that carries the internet into your home. Real fibre-optic cabling to your home is known as FTTP (Fibre To The Premises). The halfway house is FTTC (Fibre To The Cabinet) where the internet continues along traditional Openreach (formerly BT) wires into your home. As you have Virgin Media your service may be carried over coaxial cables (similar to TV antenna cable) from a cabinet in the street. Virgin uses a technology called DOCSIS in most of the country, and in some limited areas they use real fibre-optic cabling and convert to coax at your home.

If you are looking for lowest latency you may need to switch to a technology that today provides slower download speeds. This sounds "crazy" but is because the technologies work in different ways.

As candlerb says above, you need to look at what is available in your area as well as Virgin Media. This could be from the Openreach/BT wholesale world, or from an alternative network provider (such as CityFibre, Toob, Trooli and a lot of other local brands).

Edited by jchamier (Sun 19-Jun-22 09:46:17)

Seems like your choices in Knutsford are really VM02 cable or Openreach FTTC. If you do an address/postcode search on the BT Wholesale checker, it will return what is available at your property for FTTC.

There doesn’t appear to be any Openreach FTTP planned currently, other than some sporadic new builds. The only Altnet FTTP provider in plan looks to be Voneus according to bidb - but can’t see any build yet in your town, but there are connections further north in Little Bolington and Dunham Town.

Are you saying that ADSL provides lower latency than FTTP?

In reply to a post by Grimers:

Are you saying that ADSL provides lower latency than FTTP?

No, but both CAN be lower than Virgin Media DOCSIS / RFOG, which some parts of Virgin market at "almost FTTP". I wonder about a congested 32 way PON however. Everyone uploading at maximum speed, as happens on a lot of Virgin Media DOCSIS segments. At that point ADSL might be better for ping latency given it is much more point-to-point than any of the other technologies. (but usless for multi gigabyte downloads)

Edited by jchamier (Sun 19-Jun-22 16:18:44)

Thank you so much for your detailed response. My primary purpose is just to lower my latency in games which are primarily on Battle net or Amazon AWS servers in London, Paris, Frankfurt.

I was going through wondernetwork.com and it says from Manchester I should get:

Manchester
Frankfurt 20.663ms
London 6.509ms
Paris 13.376ms

But Im getting 21 ms to London - 27ms to paris and 35ms to Frankfurt.

So im just trying us is it because of my location in Manchester suburbs? Virgin having higher latency? (I just upgraded to 1gig to test it out and see if my latency lowers - no difference).

So what im primarily trying to figure out is since I dont have other FTTP alternatives in my area - should i stick to Virgin in a long contract or switch over to some other FTTC provider for my requirements. Speed doesnt really matter to me - only latency / ping does for my requirements.

I can a tracert to bbc.co.uk and the results are as follows:

1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 10 ms 11 ms 8 ms bagu-core-2a-xe-11010-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.252.69.1]
4 * * * Request timed out.
5 17 ms 17 ms 15 ms tcl5-ic-4-ae5-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.252.192.246]
6 17 ms 15 ms 16 ms ae11.prc01.rbsov.bbc.co.uk [212.58.239.93]
7 16 ms 17 ms 18 ms 132.185.249.66
8 * * * Request timed out.
9 20 ms 18 ms 15 ms ae2.er02.lbh.bbc.co.uk [132.185.249.9]
10 52 ms 64 ms 49 ms 132.185.252.130
11 17 ms 16 ms 17 ms 212.58.234.2
12 18 ms 17 ms 14 ms 212.58.233.253

Would appreciate your guidance here fellahs.

Some providers offer FTTC on a 1-month contract, so you can try it out.

21ms to London doesn't sound too terrible, and although I'm not a gamer, I understood the servers applied some latency equalisation so that people further away weren't unduly penalised.

However, what you may get with FTTC though is more *consistent* latency. The copper between your home and the cabinet is dedicated, whilst Virgin's DOCSIS network is a shared medium, and in some areas is heavily over-contended.

Thank you so much. So am I correct in assuming that my latency with all FTTC providers for my area will be exactly the same? BT, Now, Vodafone etc.

In reply to a post by Supermax:

Thank you so much. So am I correct in assuming that my latency with all FTTC providers for my area will be exactly the same? BT, Now, Vodafone etc.

Quite frankly no. We’re in dangerous assumption territory - that all FTTC providers have equivalent backhaul, routing and peering capability in place especially international routes. They really don’t necessarily and latency will vary between them all.