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Who do you have your broadband with ? (UK Guys)


TurboBaron

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So I'm with Virgin Media on their VIVID 200 service (details here:  https://my.virginmedia.com/traffic-management/traffic-management-policy-thresholds.html?buspart=uk_soc_b_na_bb_thresholds),and I've been pondering on whether to drop down a notch and go for one of their cheaper services.

 

I'm pretty lucky in that I've got fibre optic coming into the house (no idea what happens beyond the cabinet though) so I'm not sure about switching to another supplier, but it got me thinking about what everyone else's experiences are like.

 

Over to you guys !  ;)

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I used to be on Virgin, but switched to BT earlier in the year. Two reasons 1. Cost and 2 more stable line for gaming.

 

When I was on Virgin, I had terrible spikes when playing on COD it was worse than a politician on a lie detector , but I personally find it a lot better on BT's broadband.

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From the multiple tests (Ping Plotter) and multiple threads that I have seen, it would appear that BT has a much better and more stable backbone than Virgin.

 

As with any of the available ISP's - they are only as good as the initial construction quality and maintenance program servicing them, but on average BT has yielded better results for gaming purposes as Macca61 indicated above.

 

Good luck and let us know how you get on!

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I must admit I've not done too much looking under the hood in respect of the quality of our connection, if anything getting the R1 encouraged me to take more interest.  I'm going to download ping plotter now, it'll be interesting to see what it has to say about our connection.

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I worked in Cable TV for about 15 years, started as an installer and worked all the way through the ranks. I had wired my own home, and I even I was surprised at the overall LACK of quality in the CATV line feeding my current place.

 

I ended up switching to an ADSL line for my gaming room because the line quality was just better.  

 

You may be surprised to see what you are up against outside of your home before those 1's and 0's ever reach the other player.  I definitely was surprised when I reviewed my findings.

 

YMMV,

 

JD

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I was with Virgin for years until they pushed us onto a 'better' package (mandatory rollout where I am), they couldn't sort the connection out to be stable enough for gaming so I had to switch to a VDSL line.

 

It's better now than it ever was, even back in the 'good old days'.

I didn't have FTTH with Virgin though, just to the cab down the road.

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OK so I've downloaded ping plotter and it looks like I've got some learning to do about how to use it !

 

Just spoken to Virgin and apparently I'm out of contract so could make a switch elsewhere if I wanted to.  Might be interesting to see what special offers are available.

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OK so I've downloaded ping plotter and it looks like I've got some learning to do about how to use it !

 

 

Type twitter.com into the target window let it run for a while at peak time without using the internet.

 

Press file, save image when done.

 

On the forum press more reply options next to the post button and upload the plot for us to judge :)

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Not from UK, but I'm switching to rocket fiber 10Gbps next month https://rocketfiber.com

 

NetDUMA probably ain't even supporting that, so I would have to say goodbye to the amazing device. Definitely the best thing I have purchased in a long time.

 

giphy.gif

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Not from UK, but I'm switching to rocket fiber 10Gbps next month https://rocketfiber.com

 

NetDUMA probably ain't even supporting that, so I would have to say goodbye to the amazing device. Definitely the best thing I have purchased in a long time.

 

You can still keep it hooked up for the Geo.

And to have any pests access the internet through it so that you can assert your dominance over them with 'punishment blocking', etc.

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OK so I did the ping plotter thing but I'm having a nightmare trying to upload a jpeg to the forum, what gives ?

 

Click 'more reply options', then you'll see the 'choose file' and 'attach file' options.

 

Or upload it to a hosting site, imgur or something like that.

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It doesn't look to bad but to get a better picture you want to run it for a few hours, right click on the graph and select 6 hours or something. That graph is only showing ten minutes.

 

Ah ok I'll give it another go, I was sure I'd read someone talk about running it for a short period of time.  I'll set it off again tomorrow evening and resubmit the photo.

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Well as a bit of an update I was talking to Virgin Media at the same time as posting in this thead.  One of their engineers got in touch and said there's an issue affecting network speeds at peak times in my area, and also that there was a problem with my Superhub 2 itself.  Apparently VM have noticed that after a certain age the Superhubs develop intermittent faults, and the logs for my connection were showing timeouts so they're sending me a Superhub 2 ac as a replacement.  They've offered to support me while I get it plumbed in which is pretty decent.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes, from the sound of things it would be worth me running some of the tests I've run again once I've got it all set up and working.

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A new router can not stop ISP contention/congestion though, this is over selling, not enough bandwidth in place for the peak time rush.

 

Absolutely, but it'd be nice to not constantly have to keep resetting all my devices after the modem packs in.  For weeks now it's been dropping out and needing me to reset it so I was glad that he saw something wrong on his end.  I want to get an idea of what level of performance I get when all of my own devices are working - that should then help me to understand whether their network is poo or not.

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