Ideal ISP for gaming and less so downloading?

Hi there,

I'm fed up to the back teeth with virgin and so I'm looking for a new provider. I really should've read up on it more. Anyway, I want to be able to play xbox live and PC game online at peak times (I work 9-5 m-f) and also be able to do a little light downloading.

I was with UTV before that and kept hitting the 6GB cap I had and while their speeds were great, I didn't think I was getting value for money.

Can anyone recommend a good reliable service? Speed for gaming is the most important thing. I live in Northern Ireland by the way so not all providers are available here.

This was me by the way. I didn't realise I wasn't logged in.

NewNet.
IDnet.


Pacman ((((((((((((>

I feel like doing some plugging of the Enta Network. Their peak times (as in bandwidth peak) are 10pm to ~1am when everyone and their donkey are downloading the internet in the generous off peak allowances. to 10pm you get full speeds. and in that time period it is usually a constant 2Mb while their ALT (to make sure ping times do not increase.) Weekends are a bit of a crawl although appear to be rather quiet atm...

Enta do not sell direct to the public but rather through a series of resellers. These include Aquiss (who I went with due to support impressing me. ), UKFSN, ADSL24. Vivaciti along with a lot more.

They are a honest ISP publishing everything on their NOC seen here: http://noc.enta.net/ with more central capacity ordered to feed our addiction to the internet.

And a ping:
C:\Documents and Settings\sam>ping www.bbc.co.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.224.121] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.224.121: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=248
Reply from 212.58.224.121: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=248
Reply from 212.58.224.121: bytes=32 time=10ms TTL=248
Reply from 212.58.224.121: bytes=32 time=9ms TTL=248

Ping statistics for 212.58.224.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 9ms, Maximum = 10ms, Average = 9ms

Edited by Trifid (Sat 31-Mar-07 18:01:09)

Pardon my ignorance, but ENTA? Before my little kerfuffle with Virgin I just thought broadband was broadband and that it was the same thing repackaged. I know now it isn't.

Oh and when I ping the same site I get 50ms. Guess you get what you pay for in this life.

I used to be on Virgin where I got a constant 200+ pings after 7pm when max came out. It still quiet at those times over here.

If you do not use much bandwidth for

I recommend UKFSN (Entanet). My average ping is 10-15ms. Great for gaming

Enta is Entanet and they are a reseller who have partners which end users like myself and you purchase services from - currently the Enta resellers have a strong rep as is demonstrated on DSL Zone as all the top ISP's are Enta resellers.

NewNet are very good and for what's it's worth, Virgin DSL is terrible at the moment so apart from Tiscali things can only get better

Good luck whatever you do.

Blue

Edited by deleted (Mon 02-Apr-07 17:25:31)

Hi, your link points to the eclipse forum, and not Enta's... A typo me thinks

Thanks everyone, I'll be sure to review all with greater care. At the moment Newnet seems to be the best value for money with their