Best ISP for gaming in my area

Hi guys, I'm looking for the fastest, lowest latency and most reliable broadband in my area.

I'm connected to the Manchester GATLEY Exchange, Cabinet 36.

The only Fibre option I have is Virgin which would appear to be a bad choice since if it's the only such service in the area, the contention ratio must surely be very high.

So speed is likely the least important factor here since its just going to be a DSL connection.

As for latency: My current ISP is Sky (used to be with BE until they were acquired by Sky) and I'm currently getting 45ms to UK and 60 to DE, which is unacceptable. It never used to be this high, I used to get 25ms to UK and 40 to DE which was perfectly reasonable. I'd be interested in knowing if there is an appreciable difference in latency when considering different ISPs in the same area, and if there is, how I can tell which is the best.

Reliability is the most important factor here, its the reason I didn't just up and get Virgin's FTTC product. I need to have a very stable connection 24/7 with a minimum of jitter and no throttling.

Oh and it should be uncapped as well.

There is a difference in latency between different suppliers (to a degree, depending on where in the UK you are)
Run a tracert to the site and post it back here as that will give a better idea on where the issue is.

Yes you would be correct in staying away from Virgin for gaming as cable broadband networks have issues with Jitter that DSL connections do not..

Have you spoken to Sky about your latency to see if they can put you on a Gaming Profile or lower Interleaving Depth, maybe even Fast Path?

Currently I would say the best ISP's for stability would be LLU but I'm not too sure, I'm with Plusnet Fibre and gaming is rubbish even though my baseline ping to Maidenhead is only 11ms.

Tracing route to www.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.130]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 39 ms 39 ms 40 ms 0278095e.bb.sky.com [2.120.9.94]
4 40 ms 40 ms 40 ms linx-gw2.thdo.ncuk.net [195.66.236.240]
5 49 ms 41 ms 39 ms te1-1-1-31.core-rs2.thdo.ncuk.net [80.249.97.85]

6 39 ms 38 ms 38 ms www.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.130]

Trace complete.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

Yes you would be correct in staying away from Virgin for gaming as cable broadband networks have issues with Jitter that DSL connections do not..

Have you spoken to Sky about your latency to see if they can put you on a Gaming Profile or lower Interleaving Depth, maybe even Fast Path?

Currently I would say the best ISP's for stability would be LLU but I'm not too sure, I'm with Plusnet Fibre and gaming is rubbish even though my baseline ping to Maidenhead is only 11ms.

I haven't spoke to BT yet. I currently have to share my connection with up to 4 different people each day, so I'm looking at getting a second line for myself only. Thus my current pings don't really need to be fixed as the other users don't notice/care.

I'm wondering, if Sky simply took over BEs network, would it still be LLU? I'm pretty sure that's what my old connection was, it was fairly solid considering the line length:

Line Attenuation Up : 28.5
Line Attenuation Down : 57.0

I can't recall seeing anyone post stats as high as those the few times I've browsed the forums. So 20 or so ping was pretty good considering, I believe, it's at least partly dependant on line length.

The old Be network was absorbed and destroyed as the kit was aging and running on a capacity limited platform.

Your ping looks OK but if your saying your sharing that connection with others and it's a slower ADSL line (pretty long that's for sure) then you will find its the usage of others ruining gaming performance..

I think contacting Sky and and asking if you can have another line installed or even apply as a new customer might be the best thing for you to do!

I think currently you could get 12 months free BB.. but as it's a 2nd line this might have to be done by phone...

FYI. If you do opt for this and it doesn't work out then you can always cancel within the cooling off period.

Changing provider in this case won't really help you much as you're on a long line... unless you opt for a fibre "based" solution such as Virgin Media (Which probably wouldn't be a good move for gaming)

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

FYI. If you do opt for this and it doesn't work out then you can always cancel within the cooling off period.

I don't think that applies once they have ordered from Openreach. Certainly not after installation.

Tripe.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 20-May-15 14:37:39)

From what Sky told me and the documentation I've read they do!

From Activation!

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

FYI. If you do opt for this and it doesn't work out then you can always cancel within the cooling off period.

I don't think that applies once they have ordered from Openreach. Certainly not after installation.

In reference to www.sky.com/shop/b/broadband-talk/:

30 day Broadband and Talk Satisfaction Guarantee: Available within the first 30 days of all your services being activated. Refund applies to subscription charges only (not set-up charges or non-inclusive call charges) and is pro-rated. Statutory rights are not affected. Not applicable if you change your package.

That's good .

I wrongly assumed you were talking about the statute law cancellation terms.

My router has parental control options and if I block all other users I see the same pings:

Tracing route to www.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.130]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms router.asus.com [192.168.1.1]
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 39 ms 42 ms 39 ms 0278095e.bb.sky.com [2.120.9.94]
4 40 ms 39 ms 40 ms linx-gw2.thdo.ncuk.net [195.66.236.240]
5 42 ms 43 ms 40 ms te1-1-1-31.core-rs2.thdo.ncuk.net [80.249.97.85]

6 42 ms 39 ms 38 ms www.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.130]

Trace complete.

In addition to which I've had other people on my connection for years now and my pings were always fine. So I can't really say I'm optimistic about about getting another line with Sky, especially given how terrible their support is (speaking from prior experience).

The pings are good to be honest and as your in Manchester there will be a bigger delay compared to others on the net that may be down south like myself..

The pings from a traceroute will not show true connection quality or stability whilst other users are online as many users might not use bandwidth and then all of a sudden a phone might sync emails or facebook or a laptop might do an update or anything so constant monitoring would be required.

A different line "physically" with the same provider might be different to the other due a possible different route or age or bundle?

Can't say a lot about Sky customer service but tbh they are all the same and for what your are asking regarding ping you will need a guaranteed broadband service which to guarantee pings/latency will start from at least £60 without line rental and it will have a usage limit too.

I know this as I've been moaning about ping/latency guarentee's on various broadband providers for the past few years and after trying all technologies (Cable (Virgin), ADSL and VDSL(FTTC)) I have found ADSL was the best for gaming, so latency and stability and that was when the line was not in use and at low interleaving or fast path levels...

I'm having a Sky connection activated tomorrow for Gaming, not sure if I'm keeping it yet as might be moving soon and don't fancy new line costs... I will feed back on experience compared to my Plusnet FTTC which traceroutes the following.

Tracing route to www.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.130]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 2 ms 2 ms 1 ms 10.0.1.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 12 ms 12 ms 13 ms lo0.12.central12.ptw-bng01.plus.net [195.166.128
.172]
4 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms irb.12.ptw-cr01.plus.net [84.93.249.33]
5 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms linx-gw1.thn.ncuk.net [195.66.224.240]
6 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms te2-1-9.star10g.bdr-rt3.thdo.ncuk.net [80.249.97
.17]
7 14 ms 13 ms 14 ms te1-1-1-31.core-rs2.thdo.ncuk.net [80.249.97.85]

8 12 ms 12 ms 12 ms www.thinkbroadband.com [80.249.99.130]

Trace complete.

Looks good to you I suppose and the fact is it looks better in the day as currently connection is a bit congested at Plusnet's end, but I still see issues gaming...

The fact is you probably have the best connection available to you.

The pings are good to be honest and as your in Manchester there will be a bigger delay compared to others on the net that may be down south like myself..

That doesn't really explain my prior pings though. I was getting 20ms to the same servers that I currently get 45 ms to. I can definitely see others living close to Maidenhead getting lower pings then me, but certainly not a 25ms difference (and in the case of some others a 30-40ms difference). After all, 45 used to be my ping to Frankfurt...

The pings from a traceroute will not show true connection quality or stability whilst other users are online as many users might not use bandwidth and then all of a sudden a phone might sync emails or facebook or a laptop might do an update or anything so constant monitoring would be required.

Regarding other on the network: if that would cause this kind of consistent increase in ping I would have definitely noticed it a year or two back. If I try to game with other using my connection it doesn't behave at all like that, instead I get spikes up to at least 350ms, in some cases as high as 1000ms, accompanied with around 50-90% packetloss. It is also anything but consistent.

Poor routing on the part of the ISP is far more likely to be the problem.

Can't say a lot about Sky customer service but tbh they are all the same and for what your are asking regarding ping you will need a guaranteed broadband service which to guarantee pings/latency will start from at least £60 without line rental and it will have a usage limit too.

I was a sky customer before I switched to BE. I had a problem where by line speed gradually reduced from around 4Mb to 0.5Mb over the course of a year. I made many calls to Sky's support and spoke to several different people including some from their second line support team. They made all sorts of nonsense claims like viruses or the extension cables I was using being the source of the problem. I eventually gave up and moved to BE after hearing about their service.

I had the exact same problem on their package as I had on Sky so I opened a ticket with their support team one night and literally the following morning I had a response back. They detailed what the problem was and the test I could do to prove it to a BT engineer (it was a line fault). A week later, BT fixed the issue. It was that simple, but somehow Sky couldn't trace the source of the problem.

So I don't really buy the "they're all the same" line. That definitely doesn't fit with my experience. I work in tech support too and I know very well that the quality of the support you get is often dependant on which member of their team picks up the phone, but I managed to speak to around 5-6 different people from both 1st and 2nd line teams, none of which even remotely grasped what the problem was.

Oh yes sorry missed that part...

The reason your ping after being moved from BE would of changed is because of different equipment, configuration in connection and also the configuration of Sky's DLM compared too BE's.

I have seen this myself, Sky could only provide 6mb on kne line and a ping of 35md but then another provider gave me 10mb and ping of 15ms... This I can only assume it's something todo with the way your line is connected to sky's equipment at the exchange compared to others, maybe sky's equipment is further from the outgoing lines than BE's was.

When I said they're all the same Ieant they all more a less have the same policies on connection quality guarantees and unless you pay for a dedicated service then you will get the same level of service..

I notice your on a fairly long line currently... Do you use ADSL1 or 2+ to connect to sky, you could try 1 as I find it's more stable on long lines and may reduce errors that might be causing gaming issues.

As far as any other providers go, they're is only really 3 and that's BT, TalkTalk and Sky...

Others use BT or TalkTalks networks and currently j and many others I've discussed issues with have Los faith in BT's network... TalkTalks network seems ok but if your looking for lower pings I think you might end up in the same if not worse situation..

The only way I can see you lowering pings js by switching to virgin but depending on the local network in your area and the load it's carrying this might be a terrible move also and with cable comes more jitter.

PS. yes routing will be the issue.

HI again K1ll3r

Just thought I'd let you know that I went live with Sky today and so far my ping is 30-32ms to maidenhead (Rapidswitch), my line is also very long (Like yours) with a sync of 3.5mbps currently...

Sky would say I have around 10 days before I see a true figure for my connection but honestly I don't see me getting much more!

It will be interesting if I can reduce my latency a bit more but Sky's system does go for a more stable approach... specially on long lines..

I might see if I can get ADSL1 activated and see if this improves my connection a bit more also.

I'd be interested in hearing more, a sync that low seems absurd. You'd need a line attenuation >60db for that if we use my stats as a comparison.

Oh yes sorry, my attenuation is 62db on downstream!

I've given notice to have it cancelled anyway, they tried miselling something to me when originally ordering and since all promises made by there executives department have not been delivered.

Also tonight my BQM is showing a lot of bad pings and congestion even though absolutely nothing is connected to the hub so going to get rid of it and just continue sulking with Plusnet as nothing seems to be any better in this part of country...

Since I moved from West Midlands down to the south east connection to broadband have been terrible across all cable, FTTC and now ADSL too though all capacity in exchange and fibre cabs is fine...

I've been looking around some more, what do you know of the more obscure ISPs like Zen or Aquiss? At first glance, they look like what Be was, a more niche ISP that catered to demanding clients.

Probably gonna be a lot more fruitful than going with someone more mainstream I reckon.

In reply to a post by k1ll3r:

I've been looking around some more, what do you know of the more obscure ISPs like Zen or Aquiss? At first glance, they look like what Be was, a more niche ISP that catered to demanding clients.

Probably gonna be a lot more fruitful than going with someone more mainstream I reckon.

Regarding Zen wise, from being a past user, these are my pros and cons for zen,

Pros - 12 MONTH CONTRACT Thats on fiber to. Youll get FREE static Ip address x 7. Yes thats 7 static ip addresses. has been the way since adsl just isps dont tell u about it.

Cons - Zen dont do home moves. - They will cancel your contract if u need to move home, and they wont transfer it , so youll have to cough up first any remaining debt owed, then you can place a new contract.

If your landline service provider has a fit and cancels your landline that will automatically cancel your Zen fiber service and again Zen will be sending u out a bill as youve breached their T&c's.

I never noticed any difference on sky from zen tbh... Kept experiencing some slow downs but i was told that was due to heavy volumes of traffic from cab to exchange and that was on both Isp's.

Im now on Plusnet and its [censored] for gaming and my ping has increased by 10ms.

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

The reason your ping after being moved from BE would of changed is because of different equipment, configuration in connection and also the configuration of Sky's DLM compared too BE's.

I have seen this myself, Sky could only provide 6mb on kne line and a ping of 35md but then another provider gave me 10mb and ping of 15ms...

I notice your on a fairly long line currently... Do you use ADSL1 or 2+ to connect to sky, you could try 1 as I find it's more stable on long lines and may reduce errors that might be causing gaming issues.

Firstly BE did not use any form of DLM on their network, the EU was able to switch between Fast path (gaming mode) and the default interleaved profiles as well as being able to select between 3-12db target noise margins

The difference in the op's latency will be down to sky's DLM adding interleave due to the likely error rates,

As for routing/peering that was very weak with BE, also i can't speak from experience of sky, i did used to be with an ISP called ukonline, who used the same easynet LLU network they were as niche type of ISP had different peering and network priority to sky, and had easynet support staff, no dlm and would set up custom line profiles on request, but sadly sky closed them down after easynet management sold out, their peering was good,

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 31-May-15 02:32:48)

In reply to a post by keyholder:

In reply to a post by k1ll3r:

I've been looking around some more, what do you know of the more obscure ISPs like Zen or Aquiss? At first glance, they look like what Be was, a more niche ISP that catered to demanding clients.

Probably gonna be a lot more fruitful than going with someone more mainstream I reckon.

I never noticed any difference on sky from zen tbh...Kept experiencing some slow downs but i was told that was due to heavy volumes of traffic from cab to exchange and that was on both Isp's.

Im now on Plusnet and its [censored] for gaming and my ping has increased by 10ms.

I would doubt that the link from the FTTC cabs could cause a bottle neck,You would think that they over provisioned those fibre links ? are there any proven cases of this? if not then it will remain a myth imo , as for plusnet less said the better

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 31-May-15 02:42:24)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The old Be network was absorbed and destroyed as the kit was aging and running on a capacity limited platform.

It was also, at least at some point, leased as I understand it.

That Virgin is the only option doesn't necessarily mean it's bad. They'll have split nodes and there'll be fewer houses sharing the bandwidth if the uptake is high.

Try Virgin out on their trial, see how things go. If it's too jittery rethink your options. You've 30 days.

NO idea tbh...

But if there is a bottleneck / bandwidth limitation from cabs to exchange then its not going to matter who u go with to try and get the best net if isps have the equipment in the exchanges.

Where did you hear about a trial period? I couldn't find anything on their website. Google searches only bring up mobile broadband results.

In general most broadband providers offer a trial, It's like a returns policy... so if you not happy, tell them you don't want it...

So with Virgin I believe it's 28 days from install/activation to decide on wether you like or not and if not you can call and they will just disconnect it there and then and arrange for return/collection of equipment.

I also know Sky does it too and pretty sure Plusnet also...

Make sure you get confirmation form T's and C's when planning to do this though.

PS. I think BT are one that don't allow this unless the speed is significantly lower than they estimated