Good ISP for Gaming

Hello all... Getting some serious problems with Virgin Media and gaming had this for over a year and I am no longer staying with this company. Getting massive pings most nights due to the service being over sold in my area and it taking them 6 months to fix. Waited for this once for it only to last 3 months but not again.

Used to have O2 and was getting about 3Mb and pings were great however their service is traffic managed now so not looking at them again. Looking for a good ISP which is good for gaming. I am not worried about the fast speed now I just want a connection that works. Infinity not available until March 2012.

Suggestions please

For those of you interested this is what Virgin are like - Avoid: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/ping/share/82250ddd215...

Edited by Tazz_uk (Thu 11-Aug-11 16:40:30)

I recommend BE

In reply to a post by Tazz_uk:

Used to have O2 and was getting about 3Mb and pings were great however their service is traffic managed now so not looking at them again. Looking for a good ISP which is good for gaming. I am not worried about the fast speed now I just want a connection that works. Infinity not available until March 2012.

You can get BE which is very similar to O2 but unfortunately costs more, and you'll find they have no traffic management. Since you can only get 3megabit at your distance from the exchange, you would probably be advised to go for Value. Its a 12month contract at £17/month. You will need a BT line, or similar (e.g. Post Office) - a Virgin Media line won't work.

The only consideration is that on Be* Value your line will be set to interleaved. This makes it a little more stable for browsing and downloading but it does add a few msec (about.. 5? ish?) to your ping.

On Be* Unlimited or Pro you can choose to set fastpath which does lower the ping, although it makes you far more vulnerable to noise on the line.

WIth a line capable of only 3mbit I'd reccommend sticking with interleaved, although you might have other ideas! You might be able to negotiate trying fastpath for a week then upgrading to Be* Unlimited if it's your thing?

In reply to a post by blueacid:

The only consideration is that on Be* Value your line will be set to interleaved. This makes it a little more stable for browsing and downloading but it does add a few msec (about.. 5? ish?) to your ping.

Depends what you need - I value speed over latency, so my ping to the BBC is 16ms on my PRO ADSL2+ connection, and I get 17,304 kbps sync download.

If I want interleave disabled, I can get 8ms pings to the BBC, but the line is then so unstable I have to get the SNR Margin increased so I end up with a sync of 14,000 kbps.

Depends on the line and the actual requirements.