Virgin Cable for Skype and Gaming?

Hi everyone,

I have been having massive problems with my current broadband ADSL2+ service. Have been thinking of switching over to cable.

How is Virgin cable for gaming pings, youtube video streaming / iPlayer, and also Skyping? I'm thinking of getting the line rental + 30Mb service. The only major downloads are probably the 720p youtube streams and also I like to experiment with Ubuntu releases sometimes, and perhaps Steam-downloads for new games once every 3 months or so.

Will I hit any usage caps or throttling with this kind of usage? And are pings stable enough to play decently?

I very much appreciate your advice and experiences,

Thanks so much,

Ping stability is very much down to the local area,

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/5139-virgin-media...

Download more than 3.5GB between 4pm and 9pm and your speeds are halved.

Playing a game should never trigger this sort of limit, but the Steam and Ubuntu stuff may well do.

In terms of personal recommendation I would say Virgin Media is fine for downloading and ok for streaming (hopefully) but if a serious online gamer then they are not the best.

Hi thanks for the info.

Yeah not really a serious gamer, just play every so often when I get some free time.

As I say the ubuntu stuff is only like once a year when I feel like experimenting.

Otherwise major data usage is iplayer and youtube at 720p.

Is anyone else wiling to share their experiences with Virgin cable internet?

Thanks in advance

Have a look through their gaming forum for real world experience:- https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Computers-Gamin...

EDIT: And also look at the latest Ofcom report for latencyjitter etc

Edited by deleted (Wed 24-Oct-12 20:11:27)

I have a very good VM 100Mbps connection with low latency and jitter (excellent for gaming according to my teenage son), but from what I have seen here and elsewhere my situation appears to be the exception rather than the rule.
But you never know, you might get lucky like me
(My graph)

You don't say what sort of speeds you get on your current ADSL2+ service. For me it is a no-brainer to go with VM because even half-speed on their 30Mbps package would be better than ADSL2+.

And should be about 90 minutes of HD video to keep you busy while waiting for cap to lift

In reply to a post by pcoventry76:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Download more than 3.5GB between 4pm and 9pm and your speeds are halved.

On 100mbps that's a whole 13 minutes of use..

You get more on 100Mbps and half of 100Mbps is still 50Mbps.

The problem with cable for gamers/voip is mostly high jitter and sometimes packet loss. The problem for streaming is often congested links - people have been complaining about buffering on Youtube for months and months.