Which ISP is best for me ?

Hi,
We have been on the virgin media 152mb package for some time now and it's been far from satisfactory...Pings are very high and we rarely get anything near 152mb. Who would you recommend switching to? Price isn't an issue and I will be choosing the fastest speed I can get. We use the internet quite heavily for gaming, video streaming, downloading huge files, and I often live stream myself. Which ISP offers the lowest ping? If we could get it we would get Bt infinity 4 300mb but we can currently only get up to 76mb. Who would you recommend? I have heard good things about sky and bt but they seem to vary.
Thanks,
Ben

Have you used the BT Wholesale Checker to confirm what speeds you are likely to get? FTTC is distance dependent and so you could get significantly lower than 76Mb if you are a little way from the cabinet.

For heavy usage Sky, BT and PlusNet are probably the ones most people use. As far as lowest ping it depends on what settings your line has (the settings will be auto set and can make a huge difference to ping) and on where you are in the country (some networks will be quicker from particular locations due to their network layout).

To give an idea of ping I'm on BT and on the South Coast and get about 9ms to BBC servers. I wouldn't expect it to be much different on Sky or PlusNet.

All the ISPs have their good and bad points. Do you have other priorities to take into account - ie quality of support, cost, UK call centres, etc?

Yes, it says we can get up to 80mb at our address. We are less than half a mile from the exchange and the cabinet is literally on our doorstep. I just want to know which one I should go for because I'm debating between BT and sky. Obviously good support is a bonus but the aim is to not NEED support! Is one worse at peak times?
Thanks,
Ben

All depends on who is the most popular in your area/region, i.e. impossible to totally predict.

If going for the 80/20 product then less distinction as Sky 80/20 is fairly expensive, but is a bit cheaper than BT on the 40/10 services.

Even if a slown down on an 80 Meg service then video streaming unlikely to be impacted, I've found even with my slower 21 Meg FTTC that more often than not its the actual service e.g. xbox live that is the slow part and not the connection.

Hopefully you won't need support but the ISP isn't necessarily the defining factor for whether you need support but can make a big difference with the quality of the support.

A phone line can go wrong at any time for numerous reasons. Many don't fail at all but if they do then the quality of support may be important. Personally, I don't worry too much about it but others do.

There really isn't that much to choose between BT, Sky or PlusNet to be honest. Slight differences in price, some additional features that might swing one way or another (eg PlusNet can provide static IP or BT give 50GB free cloud storage with the top accounts).

In the end there probably isn't much any of us can say to help you choose between them. Suggest you look at their prices and packages and go for the one that looks most suitable. Performance wise they are much of a muchness on average.

Be wary.

The FTTC Cabinet is about 15 Metres from our door-step.

The PCP is about 50 Metres from our door-step.

But in total from the FFTC via the PCP by the phone wiring run, it is about 300 Metres to our door-step!

The estate was pre-wired in 1967, all underground so not easily traced; and there are no obvious reasons such as rivers, other buildings etc to justify the lengthy run.

I only found out about the strange routing from having a fault affecting our phone line traced and cleared back in dial-up days about 1987.