Broadband optimized for Gaming :/?

My isp is bt and i live in quite a small town and i get pings of under 20 on a 8mb connection. I rang them awhile ago and got my conenction changed to fastpath which made a big differance.

So i cant really seeing there service being any better, plus i cant get it in my area. I jsut think its part of a growing trend where companys are selling their products aimed at gamers or pro gamers then just bumping the price up.
 
-BA- said:
Contention is what has generally killed rock solid pings.
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yep, when you think that early ADSL was rated at "UPTO" 50 people sharing your connection, then it got more popular so BT changed the rules to "50" people sharing it, then when they couldnt do that any more they dropped the numbers and replaced it with sharing it at "home" level of contention..

..what ever that means in quantative terms lol

we then had buisness customers who were paying x times more for their previously 20:1 ratio adsl why we could not quantify why it was worth the extra money, just that it "was better" haha
 
I swopped frim ISDN to ADSL about 4 years ago - very late i know, but it wasn't available until then.

I ran the local campaign for conversion (or whatever it was called) and managed to get 300 signatures/names for the local exchange, around the same time BT changed their policy and chose to activate lots of exchanges in rural areas. Ours was 1 of them. I'm fairly certain my exchange has less than 200 broadband customers.

I've consistently been a Nildram customer (ISDN->ADSL). When converting to ADSL i actually went for a Nildram £59.99 a month tariff as they where one of the few companies still doing IDSN->ADSL conversions and for that tariff there where no conversion charges! (BT wanted £250+)

Around 6 months ago i changed my Nildram tariff to a £24.99 one as my speeds are nowhere near the 16mb i was paying for, since then they've changed to Talktalk/Tiscali and i'm now on a £12.99 a month tariff. Through these 6 months my 'pingtimes' have more than doubled and are now creeping back towards 80ms... Similar to what i was getting on ISDN 4 years ago! :(



Slow, i know! But my pings are constant and i never have 'busy times' where my 'net is slow :)

 
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Roady, you get what you pay for in this world fella and you are getting 13 quids worth of service.

Enter your exchange details into this which will tell you what services are available on your line.

Talk a look at Think Broadband and see what others are saying about certain ISPs.

I've been with IDNet for nearly five years. They aren't the cheapest ISP out there, but I believe I do get what I pay for when, being 2.5km from my exchange I enjoy a rock solid 6.5Mbit sync (and always top throughput to boot) and a 30ms gaming ping.

Worth taking a look at what Newnet and Zen are currently offering too as they always get good customer feedback here.

If you can get an LLU based ISP (Be for example), take a look there too :)
 
+ 1 for Newnet, I ran the Broadband sales team there for 2 years!

:D

also they have a really good UK helpdesk that know what they are doing
Tiscali are one of the worst for packet shaping everything to death
 
im on BT unlimited package upto 8mb DL
is expensive at ~£37 a month with the line rental but i always get excellent ping/stability with online games and max DL speed i get is 7.6mb so not far off advertised speeds.
i tried to set up with talk talk about a year ago as they wer advertising much cheaper prices but they ended up messing me around and left me with no BB connection for months.. so i went back to BT
 
Thanks for the info auraindigo! Here's my exchange...

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/WNNR

As you can see i'm fairly limited (lol) with my only other option being ADSL Max... Would changing provider or changing to Max increase my download speeds? I thought the linespeed was governed by BT?

I've neighbours less than half a mile up the road from me who struggle to get 0.5mbit, one of them just had a second line installed and activated, he gets 2mbit (home) yet his previous connection (business) was regraded/reactivated (BT ****up) and gets 0.4mbit. Although it's still within it's 10-day 'cooloff' period, it has me worried about changing providers...
 
line speed is dependant on its quality (which decreases as it gets longer)

it is also however affected by local exchange traffic, ISP traffic on its centrals and also any packet shaping or throttling

Tiscali are bad for ISP central traffic and also for the amount they throttle your connection so that they can basically fit more people into their system without provinging more room for them

Moving supplier to a better one would almost certainly give you a better service (even if your line is not faster the quality of service will improve)
 
The 'broadband checker' at http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker reports the following...

According to BT Wholesale, your phone line should be able to support a 1.5Mbps or greater ADSL connection via ADSL Max.

Standard ADSL RAG results
You cannot receive 2Mbps ADSL
You may be able to receive 1Mbps ADSL
You can receive 512kbps ADSL
You can receive 256kbps ADSL
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So the fact i'm receiving 2mb already really means i won't be improving on that, just my latency if i change providers?
 
Roady said:
The 'broadband checker' at http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker reports the following...



So the fact i'm receiving 2mb already really means i won't be improving on that, just my latency if i change providers?
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Post your line stats (SNR and attenuation) and we can give you a speed estimate. Likely with tweaking your line could do a little bit faster too.
 
FrenchTart said:
Post your line stats (SNR and attenuation) and we can give you a speed estimate. Likely with tweaking your line could do a little bit faster too.
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Sorry, was away over the (long)weekend!

How do i find these out? I know most routers display them but can't find them listed anywhere on my Netgear DG834G!
 
BE or o2.

If you can't do that then switch from an inter leaved connection to fast path.

If you're on SKY ask them to lower your maximum delays to 8.

Win.
 
FrenchTart said:
Not really. Depending on the level of interleave you could see anything from 4msec to ~40msec shaved from actual latency. This obviously wouldn't necessarily directly translate to ping reduction but you're likely to see something around the 10-15msec mark.

The points about line stability are the most important ones. The poster earlier that mentioned being 3km from the exchange probably wouldn't have a great experience with fastpath.
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Interleaving is a whole different story - I assume any gamer will already have their connection on fastpath anyhow.

BunnyKillBot said:
There will always be a fair amount of fluctuation, that's just the nature of the internet. Plus dont forget that its a two way street; just because you have a super dooper low ping light speed quick broadband connection does not mean every opponent you meet in the games you play will. You are effectively limited by the state of the connection your opponents. Also, every single game in existence deploys latency compensation techniques which makes the whole point rather stale and irrelevant.
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Yup but theres things an ISP can do to help reduce the amount of flux a player sees through the ISP's network most lag compenstation techniques work best with a constant latency and tend to work badly with spiky connections as well.
 
Netgear router linestats: http://192.168.0.1

Default username: admin

Default password: password

Click on Router Status then Statistics.

BTW, with Fastpath, you will lose some sync and therefore throughput if you're a distance from the exchange, but it's a good trade off for a lower ping.
 
I've been told fastpath is "old technology" now. I've been through hell with my connections over the past. This new place was no different. I finally got the line stable with nice low pings but only 3.6mb and the tech guy said I'd been put on talk talk's LLU and when mentioning fastpath (my pings were already at fastpath speeds) he said no since that was old tech
 
Naff8000 said:
I've been told fastpath is "old technology" now. I've been through hell with my connections over the past. This new place was no different. I finally got the line stable with nice low pings but only 3.6mb and the tech guy said I'd been put on talk talk's LLU and when mentioning fastpath (my pings were already at fastpath speeds) he said no since that was old tech
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old tech? LOL what a load of rubbish. (And if you mean he said 'no' to putting you on fast path, then obviously your pings cannot have been fast path pings could they.)

As is the idea some are pushing in this thread that a faster line results in lower pings :D
 
dirtydog said:
old tech? LOL what a load of rubbish. (And if you mean he said 'no' to putting you on fast path, then obviously your pings cannot have been fast path pings could they.)

As is the idea some are pushing in this thread that a faster line results in lower pings :D
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I am absoloutely certain fast path would make no difference. I have never had such low pings (16ms in some online shooters). I don't dare ask anymore in case they change it. Maybe something to do with my dreadful download speed? I'm over 3 miles from the exchange
 
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