Changing isp and need a good one for really hardcore gaming.

Side5wipe · 12 Dec 2008 at 06:22

Hi everyone im new here, and i have a few questions for anyone who can help.

This is my situation, im with pipex atm and for the last few months my connection has been capped, it would be faster to be on dail up.
I know why this is, my brother plays his 360 every day from the time he gets in from work till he goes to sleep 5pm-11pm and on weekends pretty much all day. I've emailed them about the slow down and they havent even bothered to reply after 2 weeks.
So now i want to change isp i've been looking at sky,but can't get the max package yet(no llu in our exchange) and o2 unlimited.

So the questions are, with sky i'll be limited to 40gb a month what will happen when i go over that?(and if i go sky i'll upgrade to max as soon as i can).

And if i go with o2 it says unlimited but with the amount we use will i start to see my connection being throttled after a few months.

tonyzero · 12 Dec 2008 at 07:14

i have just left Be* (also O2) and gone with TitanADSL because the pings on Be* have gone sky high over the last month or two and i would keep getting kicked of after about 30mins when on the ps3, i know TitanADSL are not LLU but they will be on the new 21CN system within a couple of months which means i will be able to go back to the 24mb service i was on with Be* also i am not on a 12 month contract with titan otherwise i might of tried sky but i didn't want to take the risk and then find out there service was crap and then be stuck with them for a year.

This site might be of use http://www.ispreview.co.uk/review/top10.php

Skidilliplop · 12 Dec 2008 at 11:40

Be/o2 ping issues are area specific, I wouldn't take them as general user experience. For the most part any LLU or non LLU provider will be good for gaming as your pings will be under 20ms to most servers in the UK which is fine. A 5ms difference doesn't affect gaming at all as all games have latency compensation coded into the engine. Not even the most hardcore of gamers has reactions that are less than about 80ms so below that you need be bothered.
Only aspect of an ISP you really need to look at is their UDP packet shaping policies.

Side5wipe · 13 Dec 2008 at 08:59

Ok thanks for that. But my concern is capped broadband for browsing its so slow, but playing online isnt that bad we get laggy. I need to know if anyone is on sky or o2 and do they slow you down if you go over the limit with sky or use way to much in o2s case.

tipsy · 13 Dec 2008 at 10:46

recently as you hae may read o2/be have has issues but as on the end of november my ping an dl speed has been back to normal. 30 ping to uk server & 40-60 on european servers. There are some peeps on here who work for o2 that will put you on fastpath (no interleaving) if you ask them to look at your profile.

TBH I think o2 has been my best move since being with adsl24, just found out though through other forums that easynet/sky/ukonline is better as they have their own back hall hence no middleman like using leased transit links. I'll be corrected somewhere with my scribblings, back the main topic though o2 is great and cheap!!! find the o2 thread for ya discount...

kev

FrenchTart · 13 Dec 2008 at 11:32

tipsy said:
recently as you hae may read o2/be have has issues but as on the end of november my ping an dl speed has been back to normal. 30 ping to uk server & 40-60 on european servers. There are some peeps on here who work for o2 that will put you on fastpath (no interleaving) if you ask them to look at your profile.

TBH I think o2 has been my best move since being with adsl24, just found out though through other forums that easynet/sky/ukonline is better as they have their own back hall hence no middleman like using leased transit links. I'll be corrected somewhere with my scribblings, back the main topic though o2 is great and cheap!!! find the o2 thread for ya discount...

kev

o2 have their own backhaul too - Be's. UKOnline/Easynet/Sky all use Easynet backhaul...basically, this is (one of) the difference(s) between LLU and IPStream.

wij · 13 Dec 2008 at 12:01

I'm leaving be in a few weeks (just gave them my notice) as BT21CN is being enabled on my exchange and I will either go and sign up with ADSL24 or if Zen announce their ADSL2 product and pricing in time I will go to them.

Yes the problems with Be are area specific, but its not just a few exchanges that they officially list any more. Each day on their member forums there are new posts about latency and packet loss. My download speed is fine, but I'm lucky to get a sub 100ms ping at peak times to any UK server, off peak it often hovers around 50ms.

If you can get Be/O2 I would give it a go, their service for me used to be excellent, but now they are just another overloaded ISP (thanks go to O2 for that IMO, I believe that Be used to stop new connections when they were running out of capacity on high use exchanges, but O2 just pile them on).

If you cant get Be/O2 personally my choice would be Zen, yes you pay what is comparatively a high price for their service but its well justified.

esK` · 13 Dec 2008 at 12:29

Im just leaving UKonline as I get horrendus packetloss to game servers, moving back to MultiplayDSL! UKonline customer support was bloody useless at the best of times. I wouldnt reccomend them what so ever!

jamjar · 13 Dec 2008 at 13:27

Easynet item

Hi All i happened to stumble upon this item ,might be of help to people

UKOnline (a brand of "Easynet") have their own backhaul network in the UK, which means they own transit pipes to POPs (Points of Presence) without having to rent backhaul off the likes of Telewest, NTL, BT Wholesale, and Bulldog, like a lot of other ISPs (Tiscali, TalkTalk, Be*, O2) have to.

With Be* (For example) they own the equiptment in the telephone exchange, and rent bandwidth from the exchange to their equiptment in Telehouse from a 3rd party (as mentioned possibly Telewest, NTL, BT Wholesale, or Bulldog).

However Easynet (UKOnline / Sky) have not only their own LLU presence, but their own backhaul presence (fibre from Points of Presence to Telehouse) therefore don't have to rely on 3rd party transit providers.

Easynet (UKOnline / Sky) also have their own international pipes to Europe and USA, meaning that they don't need to rely on the likes of Level 3 or LYNX to transfer data with other continents, again it's all their own.

It is due to this robust, in house network, that UKOnline / Sky / Easynet will probably never suffer the same occasional (or in some cases frequent) bandwidth issues or ping issues of other ISPs that dont' own their own backhaul.

ISPs that own their own backhaul in the UK:

BT Wholesale
Bulldog / Cable & Wireless (Used by Virgin media outside of "Their" (NTL / Telewest) cable area)
Telewest
NTL
Easynet

Also easynet has not got any of the problems that o2/BE are having right now... Basically o2 and BE are getting to many sign ups and the network as it stands is struggling to deliver. But they keep signing up more people, making more and more profit.

Eventually they will upgrade their network and they are apparently doing this now, but BE seems slow to do anything. They enabled some exchange's about 1 year after they were supposed to.

What's to say the network just gets worse and worse as more and more people sign up. Also although not implimented BE and o2 have Fair usage policys whereas Easynet broadband max does not.

Hope this helps!

Side5wipe · 13 Dec 2008 at 14:08

Thanks for the replies i think i might go with sky connect and stick it out till i can get max. I dont know how long that will be, cant get hold of anyone on the phone today. And it's only peak times we are getting slowed down, but gaming is playable, so if we go over our limit we'll just have to put up with it till the next month.