Gaming ISP that doesn't suck

I originally posted here but was not able to find my answer.

Quite simply...

What gaming ISP is the best? Stable, low latency. Mainly for World of Warcraft & Xbox360... Call of Duty, etc...

BE* Pro?

Vivaciti's Fibre option (FTTC)?

Some other FTTC provider?

None of the above? If so, which?

Thank you in advance for your straight and helpful answers

I live in London about 800m (direct path) from my exchange so for gaming, as a fair few servers are often situated not far from me my ping can be pretty low at times (always had fastpath enabled). Pinging bbc.co.uk (50 times) and I'm averaging 6ms with a lot of 7ms and one 12ms. The last few servers I played on were based in southern England and I was getting 7ms (Battlefield 2). I'd get between 30ms and 50ms to Scandinavia/Europe from memory. Between 100 and 150ms, East to West coast USA/Canada. Anything up to around 120/130ms for me was playable without serious disadvantage.

Never had a problem with gaming as far as Be are concerned. Because the connection was sound, I could play throughout continental Europe and even in the US and Canada (despite having 100+ms ping). I know latency isn't everything when considering quality of connection. I can't pretend to know about things like jitter etcetera and how they affect your connection but I've had very good latency from another ISP (same address/line) and would routinely disconnect from games with very high frequency. This problem went away completely when I switched from Homechoice ISP to Nildram, which then had a good reputation as a gamer's choice of ISP. I switched to Be for ADSL 2+ and better value, not to mention getting away from Tiscali who took over both previous ISPs (again).

For several years I've been with Be, both on the Pro and Unlimited packages. The only difference between them (afaik) is upload+ is only available on the Pro package. This gave me throughput of around 1770 Kbps upload and around 15712 Kbps down. Typically, I would download at around 2MB/second. I never really took advantage of the upload speeds as I'm not much of a file sharer and don't upload all that much to photography sites. So, I'm using the Unlimited service with fastpath (error correction switched off) and my upload speed is a solid 1123 Kbps or so. I'm still downloading at a max of 2MB/second.

My line stats are quite good though so your mileage might vary. I haven't looked at the thread you've linked yet but note you're not based in London. Well, there are plenty of decent ISPs to choose from nowadays but Be have always delivered me a decent service with pretty good tech support when I've needed it. They're happy to tweak your profile in the event you want to change something. Hope this little history helps you make a better informed decision.

My stats:

ADSL Link
Connection Speed (Downstream) 18833 kbps (Upstream) 1334 kbps
Line Attenuation (down) 21.0 db (up) 9.1 db
Noise Margin (down) 3.8 db (up) 3.8 db

I tweaked my line and set my downstream SNM lower (it was until today reporting 1.6dB) so I don't know what's causing the extra noise out there. My Line Attenuation figures have looked better and have presumably been fixed back at Be so I might have a chat with them and get them to reset things their end.

SPOOKish,

Thank you very much for your significantly detailed response, I must say it is the best response I've had yet and a very good review in favour of BE*.

I'm really leaning towards BE* at the moment, and certainly will snatch them if FTTC is in fact unavailable for me, although according to my post code, it is available... Whatever the case, I suspect FTTC will provide me with faster speeds than BE* while maintaining the same quality of connection with regards to low latency and stability. I could be wrong, I hope that I'm not, but if I can get faster for a bit more, I don't mind.

I'm looking into Aquiss, as I've heard good things about their FTTC broadband, and so if I'm not entirely convinced about that being the best option, then I certainly will go on BE*, if not for all of the great reviews and good hunches I've had about them, then because your response has made a significant impact on my decision.

I've always known BE* was a good company, but when I found out that I'm quite far from the exchange, it had me worried a bit, although I've been reassured by some people who have had great results from similar distances, I'll still wait to see if any FTTC customers who play World of Warcraft can comment.

Thank you once again SPOOKish! Best wishes for you to maintain your awesome connection

I'm with be after leaving ukonline (which are now dead), after swapping to them and making sure fastpath (gaming mode to them) was enabled i got much faster pings, and after things settled down i'm getting better speeds too.

I like that BE don't throttle/traffic manage and don't punish high downloads. I find in a month i blow pretty much every other ISPs download caps due to things like steam/mmo's patching. Although I can't vouch for WoW, i do know a couple of friends, one on orange, one talktalk who encountered nothing but trouble with the both of them due to download caps and such not liking the WoW patcher and ended up throttled despite them saying they don't do this.

I know playing APB i used to have a ping of around 60-80 now i have one of 40-60 depending on district population etc.

No worries got2nesa, I'm happy you found my ramble a little helpful. I've since taken a look at your thread over in the 'Which ISP?' forum and note you've already tried O2 but were seemingly unhappy with the service?

Be uses O2's infrastructure and in fact, this site and others identifies my connection as O2. There are significant differences (between O2 & Be) which more knowledgeable people like nredwood and RobertoS could tell you about. I don't think O2 offer fastpath though I don't know what level of interleaving correction they would implement or if you could select a specific profile (I think Be have a sliding scale of more stringent error correction and when once I had it enabled it only added 10ms or so onto my latency. You will likely incur more latency with O2 if they used more aggressive error correction.)

I've not played WoW I'm afraid so can't comment but Rebel seems to know what he's talking about. Yeah, there are other things to consider besides latency (download caps, traffic shaping and so on). That's why so many other heavily marketed more mainstream products are so craptastic.

If it were me and I didn't mind spending extra for a super fast FTTC connection (as you mention), I'd definitely go with RobertoS' recommendations. Mrnelster (a user on this forum) who frequents this gaming section could tell you about his recent experiences with gaming as he has FTTC. He also lived a ways from his exchange but not so far at all from his local green cabinet and reported very enviable connection speeds. If you were to try Be, considering your past difficulties and line length you'd probably be best to try it out with a 3 month contract option. You can get good offers through cashback sites like Quidco if nobody's mentioned it. Just mention that to Be when signing up and they may give you one or 2 free months instead (depending on contract length).

Good luck with it mate. I wish you and your mate gaming bliss. Just hope you're not using a PC running Windows though! The other bane in a gamer's life, once their connection's sorted is the sodding 'puter...

O2 use BE's infrastructure

O2 packages are now all traffic managed and they will not do fastpath. You can get them to put you on different SNR profiles, but only by ringing up

Due to the OP's line length, BE Pro with Annex M would not be stable. IF going for BE, I'd go for either Be Value (fastpath and static IP unavailable) or Be Unlimited. With Be Unlimited you can have fastpath, you get the option within the Member Centre to tweak your profile i.e. you don't have to ring support to do it and you can request 1 free static IP

Personally I'd go for FTTC if available and if not either BE, Vivaciti or Xilo

Nearly 5 years with BE here and pings are low, even on interleaved. I've had 3 people gaming at the same time with no issues and their phone support and forum support are excellent

Thanks nredwood, it's nice to know that Annex M won't be good for my line length.

In my experience the best latency I've ever had was from Homechoice, UK Online and Be. Given that 2 of those 3 don't exist anymore that kinda leaves Be

I can't recommend Virgin Media.

--- www.bbc.net.uk ping statistics ---

15 packets transmitted, 15 packets received, 0% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max = 11.4/20.5/43.0 ms

Thats not true, they WILL do fastpath for you on be value, you just need to phone their support up and ask for them to do it, they usually phone you when your line is active and you start using it, which i thought was a nice touch. As for static IP, mine hasnt changed at all either so yeah, nice service from BE, best ive encountered from an ISP so far.

Mrnelster (a user on this forum) who frequents this gaming section could tell you about his recent experiences with gaming as he has FTTC. He also lived a ways from his exchange but not so far at all from his local green cabinet and reported very enviable connection speeds

I cant recommend my ISP for gaming really, because I am still having problems, I think with latency.

As SPOOKish says, it is blisteringly fast at times on websites with sufficient bandwidth. From iTunes it manages 4.25MBps.

But since I have had FTTC gaming has been erratic. I am not sure if it is my router, the wireless signal, my PS3, the game in question or the network I am on (Entanet). As SPOOK says, I am approximately 6 KM from my exchange but only a couple of hundred metres from my cabinet. I get 8ms ping during the evening, but during the day the BQM below shows strange readings. And it looks like this with all devices disconnected and switched off.

During the day the speed has also been dropping from almost 38 down and 8.5 up, to 4 down and 2.5 up. This is definitely contention on the Entanet side of things. I am planning to network the whole of my home in the very near future, but tomorrow I will connect via a long patch lead and see what difference it makes. I will post the result tomorrow. The link below has been posted here many times before, but it is exactly what is happening to me at the moment.

It's certainly not what I expected from FTTC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HRtdHmXEjs&feature=y...

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Edited by mrnelster (Sat 21-May-11 21:42:03)

Thank you mrnelster for that input, that has helped a lot.

It makes me not want to order FTTC now, in all honesty, because I have read this from BT Infinity users, and IDNet, and now you with Aquiss... I was looking at AAISP but maybe its just best to go with BE Unlimited.

I'm hoping that I can get Primus' line rental, since it's only £6.79/month. I will find out tomorrow if they can do a line take-over as the current tenant will be moving out soon and taking his number with him, I'm not sure how the process works exactly but there shouldn't need to be a new line installation, it's not like the place is 200 years old and doesn't have a telephone line.

But if Bethere can install a line+internet together in the same day, that'd be awesome and I might go with that just because we're impatient

Can i make a suggestion mrnelster because i know you love gaming like me and quite a few others on these forums and after reading your post i may have the solution to your problem.

If as your post suggest you are using a wireless connection for your playstation gaming [like i was a few years back] then go buy some decent homeplugs and hey presto i bet this has a good chance of solving your gaming problems.

I am using some of THESE and its probably the best gaming investment i have ever bought and its just like been next to the router with a direct feed.

I am not going to say it will solve your problems but they have to be worth checking out.

It is true

Due to the way the BE Value profile is configured, it is not possible to have fastpath / gaming mode on BE Value

You can ring support to enable a 3db SNR profile, but definitely not fastpath / gaming mode - it is just not technically possible. It is only possible on BE Unlimited or BE Pro and not possible at all on any O2 packages

Some routers may display fastpath, but this is always due to a bug.
The upstream is always fastpath by default

And yes, dynamic IP's are very sticky on BE, but some of us who have been on BE a long time remember when there were significant issues with BE's DHCP servers which made dynamic more unreliable. Only happens rarely these days, but I'd still prefer to have a trully static IP

I beg to differ as i am on be value AND have fastpath enabled. I just asked their support agent when he phoned me after i migrated to BE, he ran ping tests to see if it was worth it being on and i got better pings and no speed loss with it on so he left it on and said if i had issues with line stability to just phone up and they'll sort it out.

Theres i cant remember where i read it i think it was the BE forums about just asking the support agents and they'll do it.

In reply to a post by mrnelster:

During the day the speed has also been dropping from almost 38 down and 8.5 up, to 4 down and 2.5 up. This is definitely contention on the Entanet side of things.

Can I ask why you have not raised this with us? I don't want customers sitting on problems if we can help. We have hundreds of customers on FTTC, and apart from from 2 customers who have speeds at levels not acceptable to our high standards, we have not got any other reported cases on file.

With your upstream also dropping, which is very unusual, this sounds more than just contention across Entanet's network. We always see Upstream speeds remaining constant, even if downstream is coming under some loads. I would therefore have to disagree with your "definitely" position on this, but I am aware of the overall position this side.

In terms of gaming, the network is top notch. We get nothing but high praise from gamers.

Edited by aquiss (Sun 22-May-11 10:10:00)

Can I ask why you have not raised this with us? I don't want customers sitting on problems if we can help. We have hundreds of customers on FTTC, and apart from from 2 customers who have speeds at levels not acceptable to our high standards, we have not got any other reported cases on file.

I haven't had time Martin. I will do when I have the time.

If you re read my post I pointed out that the downloads are blisteringly fast. Gaming however is all about latency. As you can see I am being responsible and pointing out all of the possible problems that I want to eliminate before I blame my ISP. I am simply saying that I cannot recommend either way for gaming until I know what is causing my problem.

That said, it is Entanet after all. And I have read enough about latency issues with them not to be complacent.
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Thanks T2D. I will grab a new long patch lead today and see how it goes with that first. I have thought about these adaptors but I want to check out the netgear router properly before I buy anything else of theirs.

The router is in the same roomas the PS3, about 15 feet away. That's why I don't think it is an out and out wireless problem. I have a new Lynksys cable router I bought in a clearance that I will try first.

There is also the DMZ method, but that is the least favoured option really, especially after the recent Sony episode.
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In reply to a post by time2die:

Can i make a suggestion. If as your post suggest you are using a wireless connection for your playstation gaming [like i was a few years back] then go buy some decent homeplugs and hey presto i bet this has a good chance of solving your gaming problems.

I am not going to say it will solve your problems but they have to be worth checking out.

The very best of suggestions!

Tried wired connection today mate. Speed doubled on the PS3 test for upload and download. However it still read higher on the PC and with a lower ping.

The gaming on BOps was still dire though. If you check my BQM below, you will see the blue spike between 3 and 4pm. That's exactly when I was playing. I am going to swap the router next. The thing is, if the router was to blame it wouldn't show such a good connection during the early hours and then instantly decline at 9am even when nothing is connected.

With my apparent connection you would expect me to get host quite often wouldn't you?

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/01/17/video-shows-shocki...

So when it picks me as host, why does it actually get worse?
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Nothing to worry about with DMZ and consoles, just make sure you set your console as a static IP. It should have been the first thing you tried. I don't think it will give that much of a latency boost though.

Thanks. I will try that tomorrow.
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I don't want to get into any arguments, so we'll have to agree to disagree. Would you be kind enough to pos your full stats though?

Link Information

Uptime: 10 days, 19:25:20

Modulation: G.992.5 Annex A

Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,300 / 8,484

Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [GB/GB]: 4.48 / 6.27

Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 18.0

Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 19.0 / 37.0

SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.5 / 6.5

Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / µ

Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 4 / 0

Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 1 / 0

Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0

Loss of Link (Remote): 0

Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 6,600 / 0

FEC Errors (Up/Down): 0 / 0

CRC Errors (Up/Down): 166,425 / 6,897

HEC Errors (Up/Down): 94,912 / 2,071

The 0 count on downstream FEC errors is the only true indicator in the stats above that this BE Unlimited connection is on fastpath, as with fastpath there is no error correction

Are you suffering lag with any other game?
You do know that Black ops is a lag fest on every platform?
I play on xbox live and some games you are ahead of the enemy then the next match you can be as much as a second behind, its just how things are.
Go to callofduty.com and search for lag or lag compensation and are thousands of comments on it mostly from people with fast up to 50mb connections they suffer the most.
folk on say 3mb slow connection's come in the threads and say its fine for me.
Treyarch's lag comp is making people with good connections, fast down and uploads with great ping's suffer.
Fingers crossed for MW3

Edited by TiMeTraVeLeR (Thu 26-May-11 15:23:29)

Thanks for that reply.

I think I've come to the same conclusion. I tried MW1 yesterday, and it worked much better ( that is when it wasn't a glitched speed game). I used to lag on all games but that was because of my old connection. I will try some other games this weekend, the first one being BF Bad Compsny. I loved that game apart from terrible lag. Hopefully it will now play much better for me.
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I do like black ops when it works but i find i have to keep backing out until i find a host that is not lagging.

My ping is 17ms on fast path most games play nice but with bops i can be on the verge of throwing my pad around the room.

Its not visible lag like jumping frame rate i think they have coded the game not to show stutters but you are still lagging.

Good luck with your other games and hope it they work well

I have just been reading threads on callofduty.com forums blackops/360 when i saw this.

http://www.callofduty.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=73&t...

someone wanting to know about xbox live because PSN is laggy i have never used PSN but a few posters come into the thread and say yes PSN is laggy full stop on any game.

I enjoy playing Resistance: Fall Of Man on the Playstation 3, Deathmatch is fun at the bus yard.

Anyways, with my new NetGear router it frequently disconnected, a bit of Googling came up with information about that, i switched back to my Zyxel router and the disconnecting stopped, it stays connected brilliantly, the Netgear though is better for a direct connection when using my computer, so i use them both but the Zyxel when doing wireless online gaming.

I guess i'm just saying that the router can sometimes be the cause of an issue.

Edited by deleted (Mon 30-May-11 14:13:15)

I enjoy playing Resistance: Fall Of Man on the Playstation 3, Deathmatch is fun at the bus yard.

I haven't played Resistance Fall of Man for years, but the bus yard truly was great fun. I don't recall many maps I have enjoyed that much on any game.

If I had to pick, Crash and Vacant on COD 4 are right up there.
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