Best UK ISP for Lowest Latencies in Competitive Gaming

Hi there,

Hope you are all well?

Had a scour across the forum and Reddit but haven't found a thread which directly addresses this topic, so I thought that I'd sign up and ask for your help.

My current provider is Virgin Media whom I've been with for many, many years but their latencies are probably the worst out there for competitive gaming, especially if you are getting connected to servers across EU outside of the UK. I am getting into gaming professionally and would like to understand how I can reduce my ping times to as low as physically possible via the right ISP selection.

I'm interested specifically in FTTP providers - Currently I'm on the 1Gig package from Virgin and I'm really unhappy with the performance of the line for single threaded transfer speeds and ping.

So to my question.

Friends that are with BT FTTP and Sky FTTP Openreach lines are experiencing over a 50% improvement, sometimes as much as 75% lower ping speeds in game versus Virgin across every game and location I've ever played. Has anyone done any ping tests across different providers to understand which is best for achieving the lowest possible latency? What are everyone's experiences?

I'd like to understand and learn more about which Openreach providers have the best peering or routing arrangements, as from research it looks like they all differ quite dramatically, and this could have a huge impact to variances in latencies and line qualities, especially impacting connections to game servers outside of the UK.

I've seen people on Hyperoptic (not available in my area!) that are achieving unbelievably low pings across all locations. Guess that's down to less oversubscription, paired with great peering and routing? Sadly I can't get them here yet or I would have subbed already.

Seen a few Gaming specific ISPs pop up (e.g. Ghost, Leetline) - I assume they will just resell me something from BT. Does anyone have any experience with those types of providers, or know how their peering/routing may be better specifically for Gaming?

I wouldn't have an issue subscribing to a business package too if that meant that I'd get packet priority - not entirely sure how that may work nowadays. Would love to understand more if anyone has any insights on this too.

Many thanks,
Ell

Where about are you based and what comms providers (other than Virgin) do you actually have access/available to you? Even in Openreach FTTP served areas you may not currently have the “full” selection of providers.

Secondly where are the games servers located? If they’re all in Texas it’s a might different proposition to if they’re in Telehouse for instance?

What is your current ping time like? What’s the budget?

Thanks for your response! Answers below.

1 - Based in SW London. Have done postcode checks and BT, Sky, Talk Talk, Zen, Aquiss, EE are all available to me as FTTP services. Any others you'd recommend I check?
2 - As far as I understand, the majority of the servers are located across the UK (London mainly), Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt and Madrid mainly. There are more but it is unlikely I will be matched onto them due to ping caps in game etc.
3 - Rough pings to London servers roughly 34ms. Paris 46ms, Amsterdam 66 ms, Frankfurt 65ms, Madrid 80ms.This increases and varies between game of course.

Seen people on Hyperoptic in London ping 3-6ms to London, 10-16ms to the rest.

On games that require lightning reaction times, the difference between 16-80ms impacts play. I understand that this is a blink of an eye but I would like to of course be in the best position possible.

4 - Budget is open for discussion, most commercial home providers are around the £60pm mark which is totally fine. £150 is probably pushing the limit. I would consider a premium service if it delivered adequate value though. Would be great to understand all options.

Edited by Ellessdee (Sun 15-Aug-21 19:49:18)

For London that’s a very, very high ping.

Any of the FTTP providers you mentioned should be able to deliver you better than 5ms ping to any of the main London datacentres, probably closer to 3ms.

I used to get around 6ms from Woodbridge/Ipswich on a Cerberus FTTP connection using BT Wholesale backhaul to their facility in Greenford. Now get around 7ms on Talk Talk Business. From N1 in London I can get well under 1ms ping into Telehouse on leased circuit. 2ms ping is pretty normal for Community Fibre.

I’d also add Cerberus to the list of providers your looking at. Excellent service compared to the big boys, and they recently reduced their FTTP prices.

Indeed it is. This is ping to game servers through the game client. On a good day I'll get 26-28ms. Welcome to the life of a Virgin Media customer. I don't think I've ever seen lower than 22ms to any LDN server. Traceroutes show that my router is adding less than 1ms so it's entirely the network to blame. Apparently it routes all the way up to Hartlepool before coming back down to LDN.

Thanks, I hadn't checked Cerberus and apparently they are available and delivering to my area. Their website is a bit clunky but I'll check them out. Any known difference between the home and business plans other than the removal of VAT and slightly faster service times?

Just the VAT.

They are very good, and now again since their recent price drop, are price competitive. A lot of us here have been through them with FTTPoD, so we know the score. They are honest brokers.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

From N1 in London I can get well under 1ms ping into Telehouse on leased circuit.

I'm investigating Cerberus in the meantime as Community Fibre isn't available here in SW London, but do you have any info or recommendations on leased circuits in London? I'm very new to this topic. What's the est. price of such a setup? Wondering if I could afford to push the boat out a little to cover this and guarantee mega-mega low ms.

Thanks again, Sir!

Edited by Ellessdee (Tue 17-Aug-21 00:39:01)

Eyes wide open!

A leased line is a *very* big financial commitment for a non-business. Although London has some of the best availability when it comes to providers having fibre available in city and metro areas, you are still looking at the thick end of at least £2000 pa service charges for a 100/100 service and upwards of £3500 for a 1G/1G service before VAT.

Contracts on leased lines are typically 36 months or 12 months. Somewhere like London with a greater possibility of you being on-net with various circuit providers, its is typical for Excess Construction Costs (ECCs) to be generally lower and also to absorbed by the provider on a longer contract term. But that is not an ironclad guarantee, rather an expectation. On a single year contract it is more likely (but again not impossible) to be charged for the ECCs up front. We are probably taking low thousands if that's the eventuality.

If you're still conscious at this point 😎 I would recommend that you do your homework and shop around with various comms providers, as there are very many permutations of network providers, offered by the big boys themselves and a myriad of smaller providers. Costs and terms can vary massively. Its not like buying broadband, you really have to be careful what you could be letting yourself in for.

Thanks for this. Extremely insightful and very helpful comments.

Yes agreed that circa £300pm for 1G is probably out of budget on the high end for me at this stage but this is definitely something I will be strongly considering if things start to grow and expand.

It wouldn't make sense for me, considering the amount of transfers I need to make, to consider a 100/100 line, so I'd be looking at somewhere in the middle and up from those two figures. For now, that's a no-go but definitely not off the table in the future. I will therefore take the next year to research and understand what is actually available!

Pretty convinced that something like Cerberus FTTP is a good shout in the short term. They also do 12mo contracts which is absolutely ideal if I want to consider something leased after a bit more time and thought.

When I eventually get out of my VM contract over the coming ~1month I'd be happy to put you forward as a referrer if you were to receive any benefit from me doing so. Let me know if that is the case.

Thanks

Thanks very much. Very kind. I have no financial or other interest in Cerberus, other than as a satisfied former customer. It's a good, solid proposition for FTTP, decent backhaul and monthly costs for regular FTTP now are in the ball park of some of the big guys. I would recommend them. Hope it all goes well for you.