Best ISP for gaming ping times?

I've heard from someone that it doesn't matter what ISP I have for ping time to game servers in America, because all ISPs use the same equipment and fibre pipes belonging to BT

Is this true? Will my ping time to game servers stay the same, no matter who my ISP is?

If it isn't true, which ISP has the lowest ping?

It isn't true. ISPs share some parts of the network (assuming they are using Openreach end connections) but there are a number of places where that might diverge.

Ping times could be very different in parts of the network. However, I am afraid I can't tell you who would have the lowest pings to US and on average it probably wouldn't be massively different as the big impact is getting across the pond which is going to be where most of the latency occurs (and is not related to BT).

The ping to US on a Virgin connection I suspect is not significantly dissimilar to that from a BT connection or TalkTalk or anyone else.

Is ping time affected by ISP network congestion or telephone exchange congestion?

My average ping time to game servers is 140ms

A reduction of 40ms to 100 would be good

Getting it down to 50ms or below would be amazing

Well this is my experiance,

I changed my isp from virgin media cable to zen fttc,

I used to get 30-40 ms ping to uk servers with virgin but now i get 10-20ms ping to uk servers with zen.

So for me to uk servers the ping is pretty much halve that on virgin media and a bit lower.

The main reason why i changed isp is firstly the ping time.

Ok the download speed will never be as fast as virgin media but the ping times for me make up for it.

Also the quality of the open reach telephone line somehow dictates how good your connection will be like.

Below is my tracert to google.co.uk

C:\Users\Dan>tracert www.google.co.uk

Tracing route to www.google.co.uk [172.217.169.67]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 1 ms 2 ms <1 ms fritz.box [192.168.178.1]
2 15 ms 48 ms 13 ms vt1.cor2.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.72.22]
3 15 ms 22 ms 22 ms ae-8.agg1.lond1.ptn.zen.net.uk [51.148.73.14]
4 14 ms 13 ms 13 ms 72.14.217.190
5 15 ms 14 ms 15 ms 74.125.242.97
6 18 ms 15 ms 14 ms 172.253.66.101
7 23 ms 14 ms 15 ms lhr48s09-in-f3.1e100.net [172.217.169.67]

Trace complete.


Dan.

Edited by lltfdaniel (Mon 13-Jan-20 17:21:38)

From where and to where? Getting down to 50ms for UK to US would be amazing - mainly because you would have broken the speed of light. There is a minimum that is even physically possible between locations and that is based on the speed of light - then each switch will add some delay and you won't go in a direct line (there will always be some diversions unless you can lay your own personal fibre point to point).

You might be able to get down to 100ms depending on where in the states the servers are (if they are east coast you could be lucky but if they are west coast then it is probably a pipe dream).

Network congestion would make a difference, technology for the last mile also impacts. Where you live in the country and where the transatlantic links are would also make a difference. Some ISPs might have great peering to certain areas of the states but not others. There are so many variables...

In reply to a post by ian72:

From where and to where? Getting down to 50ms for UK to US would be amazing - mainly because you would have broken the speed of light. There is a minimum that is even physically possible between locations and that is based on the speed of light - then each switch will add some delay and you won't go in a direct line (there will always be some diversions unless you can lay your own personal fibre point to point).

You might be able to get down to 100ms depending on where in the states the servers are (if they are east coast you could be lucky but if they are west coast then it is probably a pipe dream).

Network congestion would make a difference, technology for the last mile also impacts. Where you live in the country and where the transatlantic links are would also make a difference. Some ISPs might have great peering to certain areas of the states but not others. There are so many variables...

I agree, to us east coast servers i get around 110ms to 130 ms.

57ms minimum UK-USA?

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=minimum+latency+uk...

FWIW iDNet offer a special gaming service which apparently prioritises routing to gaming servers. Whether this includes the US I have no idea.

You're looking at £60/pm for a FTTC connection so I imagine it will only appeal to the most fanatical gamers.

In reply to a post by zelly:

Getting it down to 50ms or below would be amazing

I would suggest emigration as the only option there.

the best i got was with BT broadband FTTC, ping of 8-10ms for UK servers and ~80ms to east coast US servers. to west coast servers the ping was pretty bad because of the distance.