choices for gaming/downloading isp

stevieg

stevieg

stevieg

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Joined
28 Jan 2007
Posts
435
hi all,
im finally coming to the end of my aol 18 month contract next month and i was wondering where should i go,

the nail in aol's coffin was the release of battlefield 1943 and with me being on aol and their port blocking of some ports used in p2p im not able to play it between 2pm and 1am. since im at work until 5pm it doesnt really work out as bf1943 uses some of these ports

the thing is i figure all standard 8mb(non-llu) isp's would be sort of the same but with o2/virgin i figure i could play the game alright

according to samknows the only llu provider i could go with would be talktalk, now as far as i understand it talktalk and aol are basically the same company but according to someone i game with who is with llu talktalk, he can play the game at any time just fine

so what should i do, go with non llu providers o2/virgin/falconnet or someone else you could suggest
or
the only llu provider at my exchange talktalk


im leaning toward talktalk because as i understand it llu could give me a better service for gaming and such

but i dont completely understand what llu service would gain me over standard 8mb
 
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IMO if you can stomach the costs and live with the download caps then Zen are still (and again IMO always have been) the best non-llu ADSL provider out there.

If you want better value for money you can look at something like an Entanet reseller, though their once very good service is now a bit hit and miss depending on where you live but seems to be getting better.

If you want dirt cheap then TalkTalk are probably up your street, if you want quality of service and customer support then I'd avoid them. They are a mass consumer orientated ISP and this is generally reflected in the performance many people find.

O2's non LLU service from what I've read is mostly garbage, and if you live in a very congested area it will be very bad indeed. Similarly I wouldn't touch Virgins ADSL as they throttle certain types of traffic like mad which given your problems with AOL would be worth avoiding.

Just because something is an LLU product does not mean it is necessarily any good. All it means in general is that it is a cheaper service (ISP's own gear at the exchange as apposed to BT's) and will likely offer theoretical faster speeds as they are generally delivering ADSL2+ services instead of just ADSL1 like most of the BTWholesale providers.

Can you get cable where you are, I've recently moved house (3 months ago now) and went from Be + Zen ADSL to VM and was not expecting to enjoy it but so far apart form a billing **** up I've had a pretty faultless 50mbit service. Speeds are a bit variable at peak times but nothing terrible (typically always manages 40Mbit/sec from most sources, good ones get straight up to 50Mbit after a few seconds).
 
cost would be an issue, im paying £24 p/m atm for 8mb unlimited( i dont get throttled no matter how much i downloaded, trust me ive downloaded a lot in some months)and since we have talktalk phone package in the guy who sole us it said we would get broadband for free,

nah my exchange is pap im afraid

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

the best thing i have going for me is that im only 500 metres from it, thats probably why i have never had any major problems with aol
 
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If cost is an issue consider someone like ADSL24 (an Enta reseller):

http://adsl24.co.uk/broadband/home/

Might save you £5 a month, but get you a significantly better service. Despite all the "problems" some people seem to get my parents have had their connection now from them for 2 years and it has been pretty rock solid, it is a one month contract too though so if it's no good in your area it is easy to drop it and move on.
 
I dunno, to be honest I used to play most online games on a 64K ISDN line and that was perfectly good enough so go figure.

What I'm trying to say is speed doesn't mean very much, it is latency and the quality of the connection. I.e. no packet loss and short routes to each host. Those sort of things you generally do not get with an ISP that costs £5 a month.
 
Wouldn't touch an enta reseller with a barge pole - and avoid BT they are horrendous for gaming atm...

Best bet is to look at the packages fast.co.uk, AAISP and IDNet have to offer.
 
Rroff said:
Wouldn't touch an enta reseller with a barge pole
Click to expand...

Well all I can say is I'm on an Enta connection at the moment and its working fine, and after 30 days if it's no good then you can just drop them and try another provider.

To be frank with lots of people and resellers going elsewhere for those that stay it will only get better.

Code: 
Ping has started ...

PING multiplay.co.uk (85.236.96.22): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 85.236.96.22: icmp_seq=0 ttl=120 time=20.194 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.22: icmp_seq=1 ttl=120 time=21.604 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.22: icmp_seq=2 ttl=120 time=20.331 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.22: icmp_seq=3 ttl=120 time=19.168 ms
64 bytes from 85.236.96.22: icmp_seq=4 ttl=120 time=22.107 ms

--- multiplay.co.uk ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 19.168/20.681/22.107/1.052 ms

Code: 
Ping has started ...

PING jolt.co.uk (84.234.17.86): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 84.234.17.86: icmp_seq=0 ttl=123 time=20.636 ms
64 bytes from 84.234.17.86: icmp_seq=1 ttl=123 time=19.582 ms
64 bytes from 84.234.17.86: icmp_seq=2 ttl=123 time=21.867 ms
64 bytes from 84.234.17.86: icmp_seq=3 ttl=123 time=20.735 ms
64 bytes from 84.234.17.86: icmp_seq=4 ttl=123 time=21.422 ms

--- jolt.co.uk ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 19.582/20.848/21.867/0.778 ms

Looks fine to me, we're connected through the Miltonkeynes node which I know is one of the less congested but even so not by much. Infact the only one that I think consistently has problems is the Edinburgh node.
 
Pinging 85.236.96.22
with 64 bytes data (92 bytes IP):

Reply from 85.236.96.22: seq=0000 time=11.010ms TTL=117 ID=51f1
Reply from 85.236.96.22: seq=0001 time=11.663ms TTL=117 ID=51f2
Reply from 85.236.96.22: seq=0002 time=10.575ms TTL=117 ID=51f7
Reply from 85.236.96.22: seq=0003 time=10.452ms TTL=117 ID=51f9

Statistics for 85.236.96.22:
Packets: sent=4, rcvd=4, error=0, lost=0 (0% loss) in 1.510380 sec
RTTs of replies in ms: min/avg/max: 10.452 / 10.925 / 11.663
Click to expand...


Multiplay on BT - earlier in the day or later at night I can get that down to 6-7ms - come peak time around 6-7pm onwards it will climb to 50+ms - BT are rubbish any more :(
 
Pinging multiplay.co.uk [85.236.96.22] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 85.236.96.22: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=123
Reply from 85.236.96.22: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=123
Reply from 85.236.96.22: bytes=32 time=6ms TTL=123
Reply from 85.236.96.22: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=123

Ping statistics for 85.236.96.22:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 6ms, Maximum = 7ms, Average = 6ms

That's with Be. And I have interleaving ON which is weird as it's supposed to increase latency.
 
No, my pings were from an Entanet connection, not an LLU service.

Your high latency is likely just AOL being ****.
 
Mine are just stock BT on WBC :(

I doubt you have interleaving on with 6-7ms pings... usually depth 1 = 33ms and depth 2 = 62ms.
 
wij said:
No, my pings were from an Entanet connection, not an LLU service.

Your high latency is likely just AOL being ****.
Click to expand...

mind saying who or are they all likely to be the same

it appears talktalk are at capacity at my exchange(probably a good thing for me atleast) so it looks like itll be enta or bust
 
ADSL24, though apart from varying support they are all likely to offer the same performance.
 
I did some research a while back before i changed to Be and found that the best ones where Be and Entanet resellers such as Adsl24. But speeds depend slightly on your areas.
 
redporshe said:
I did some research a while back before i changed to Be and found that the best ones where Be and Entanet resellers such as Adsl24. But speeds depend slightly on your areas.
Click to expand...

I'd say there are significantly better ISP's out there than Be and ADSL24 et. al. but they cost proportionately more, so in terms of value for money and general performance that is broadly true.

If I had no need for an unlimited ISP and needed to use a non-llu provider I'd be going straight to Zen, their service is truly superb but you pay a big premium for it.
 
I don't see what would be significantly better than my connection from Be that I'd want to pay a premium for. I don't recall having any downtime in at least the last year and my latency and download speeds are respectively as low and high as can be. I don't have to think about my ISP at all, the only reminder is the monthly payment notifications.
 
ok so im getting my mac code from aol in the next few days and my service ends on the 15th of august

so what im wondering is when i sign up to adsl24 do i give them the 15th as my start date or can i start it asap(5-7 working days from signing up)

and if i get it started it asap will the two isp's conflict or can they get along peacefully till the 15th when aol ends
 
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