Does more money mean a better Isp?

jjgreenwood

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I'm with plusnet at the moment who have been fine. If I'm going to pick holes then sometimes when gaming my Internet plays up a bit and I get lag. It is proper cheap though at just a few pounds a month.

I've also been with sky in the past. They slowed down on occasion, probably due to the amount of people on sky llu round here.

Due to my gaming being a bit dodgy I started looking at other options. I have no fibre so 21cn or talktalk or sky are my options. I've noticed aquiss Internet mention gaming in their package but it's a lot more money at £27 a month. Is it worth the extra and will I get a better Connection?
 
Ultimately yes.

Google bonded broadband, but be weary of which ISP is offering it.

Some ISPs are resellers not true ISPs
 
Ultimately yes.

Google bonded broadband, but be weary of which ISP is offering it.

Some ISPs are resellers not true ISPs
That does look like a good answer but moving into yet another league of pricing. The eclipse broadband bonded lines look to run at £40-£50 a line for reasonable download limits.

I have to admit I struggle with broadband. I don't really understand why I can buy plusnet at £3 a month unlimited, yet these better providers cost £30 a month with limits, and bespoke stuff seems to be £100 a month. The difference in price is huge and I don't understand what value it gives me.

Does the £30 guy look at my line and make sure its more stable or something? Is he better than plusnet's computers at it? Is my contention reduced, as my only option other than talktalk and sky is resold 21cn I assume it would remain the same? I find it all very confusing.
 
I have to be careful what i write as i run my own ISP (and a very good one at that) but as an advisor all ISP's can change your profile to 'gaming' with a click of a button. However not all ISP's have the ability to provide a full throughput - critical to ask.

edited as you posted i was writing.

Bandwidth is about to go through the roof in costs, free unlimited usage is about to disappear or cost you a small packet for the luxury.
 
I have to be careful what i write as i run my own ISP (and a very good one at that) but as an advisor all ISP's can change your profile to 'gaming' with a click of a button. However not all ISP's have the ability to provide a full throughput - critical to ask.
What do you mean by "full throughput"
 
Plusnet is BT but running at a loss, it's a tax break for them. the £30 guy looks at your line and thinks ok, how much can i squeeze out of this guy to get stability but throttle him so i can sell a few more hundred connections who hardly use the internet at the same price.

We as ISP's all buy at the same rate, the ones who add on 1000's of customers get discounts, so the more accounts they add onto a pipe (think motorway) the more congested it gets, but the more traffic they can add onto the pipe.

Want more, it is going to cost and them costs are going to rise.
 
What do you mean by "full throughput"

Full throughput is the speed you connect to the internet, all ISP's bar a few allow you to upload at the best speed you can manage, taking into consideration cabling etc so the best throughput allows you to upload at at a greater speed, but it costs the ISP money as you use more transit.
 
Is there any way of knowing which Isp is good or bad other than the top 10 table. It has xilo at the top, so is that connection likely to be a great deal better than my plusnet connection?
 
In all honesty the top 10 table spend a fortune on staff adding there own reviews, any ISP who states it is not true is a liar - and that is the game of telecoms, smoke and mirrors.

I am being as honest as i can, rest assured if any mods are reading this and i am confident they are, i am just laying out the truth.

The company you suggest has all of the accreditations and yes they have this that and the other, but ring them and ask them 'do you have your own network' if they say yes, ask them where are there data centres, how much do they invest in there network and who do they buy from.

I can check tomorrow for you, not now as it's too late.

The connection depends on usage, QOS, bandwidth, contention, so yes it can be more expensive but it depends on what you need mate.
 
Shame this kind of info isn't shared on the Internet as these kinds of kpi stats would help in being able to choose, and also judging what value for money is out there. Cheers for your help bb3.
 
It's a business ran by a monopoly, the info will never be on the internet as it's quickly shut down. I am more than happy to advise, but i have to be careful as the mods think i am touting for business - which of course i would like the business but it's not all about the money - it is about doing what is right.
 
Nope, it is not the case that more money means good ISP. Many ISP's have compatible prices but they provide best service as compared with highly priced services.
 
Due to my gaming being a bit dodgy I started looking at other options.

The first thing is to narrow down the problem, ISPs are not solely responsible for internet performance so there's no point in changing ISP if the fault doesn't lie there.

For a start can you describe you 'lag' more precisely as it's a vague term that gets applied to a lot of things. Is it a delay but with everything running smoothly? Is it things juddering or rubber-banding? Does it happen in all online games or just some? Does it happen in any other programs that use the internet (skype, iPlayer, etc.)?
 
The first thing is to narrow down the problem, ISPs are not solely responsible for internet performance so there's no point in changing ISP if the fault doesn't lie there.

For a start can you describe you 'lag' more precisely as it's a vague term that gets applied to a lot of things. Is it a delay but with everything running smoothly? Is it things juddering or rubber-banding? Does it happen in all online games or just some? Does it happen in any other programs that use the internet (skype, iPlayer, etc.)?
It happens on my fps on x1, on occasion I end up jumping around the screen. Happens on PVZ, COD & Titanfall. During the day its fine so it mainly happens at night. The console is wired into a power adaptor and connected to the router like that.

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I've contacted plusnet and they have removed interleaving from my line which has reduced by ping from 60ms to 40ms according to bt speedcheck. I think I'm going to go with Andrews and Arnold to see what difference a better isp makes.
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Have you tried connecting directly to your router from your Xbone to see if that is any better? Not suggesting that is the problem but that does add latency to your ping as there is a conversion between ethernet and the electrical signal passed along your wiring.

I realise this might require a long cable but it might be worth trying to establish if this is adding\causing the effect.
 
Got no way to do it as my router is just nowhere near the xbox. It's a pretty new house so the mains should be fairly clean. I might try it via wireless, it does seem like it's the isp though as the ping just spikes occasionally, a lot of the time it works fine.
 
Do a continuous ping and see if it fluctuates, also run a tracert and see how many hops you go through.

6 is great
8 is OK
10 is poor
More is terrible
 
upload_2014-4-9_21-5-58.png
 
upload_2014-4-9_21-8-22.png
 
Two timeouts not good, if you run the ping with -t at the end watch it for a minute or so
 
My mistake, need a break from work! Its no stress to worry about!
 
upload_2014-4-9_21-40-7.png


starts off ok and then goes all over the place
 

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