Which internet providor for MMORPG?

pinkie_pie

OH and I both play world of warcraft, and on my bt total broadband it's virtually unplayable, with a latency of up to 3k during peak times.

We are looking to switch package, were going to use O2 but heard their traffic shaping affects torrents which WOW uses.

Any advice please?

macman

What are your other LLU options?
Do an exchange search on samknows.

pinkie_pie

I did look but I'm not quite sure what difference that makes, I don't entirely understand. For example, it says we have O2 LLU, but I know that even on their 'The Works' package, torrent is affected by their traffic shaping?

It says we have:

BT Wholesale ADSL
BT Wholesale ADSL Max
BT Wholesale WBC (21CN)
BT FTTC
AOL LLU
O2 / Be LLU
Bulldog LLU
TalkTalk (CPW) LLU
Sky Broadband / Easynet LLU
Tiscali LLU
Virgin Media (Cable)

macman

So your basic LLU choices are O2/Be, Sky or VM cable.

Carrot007

I would have thought your best option would be going onto the BT FTTC option.

pinkie_pie

what is fttc?

macman

Fibre To The Cabinet.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Of all of those, the only 2 that I'm reasonably certain that do not throttle are Sky and BE (buying from BE direct - O2 use BE to deliver the service, but with the restrictions you've noted).

Same is true of VM cable's 50Mbps and 100Mbps packages, though latency can be variable depending on the quality of the service in your street. That said you have a 30 day money back guarantee if you're not happy and the outright speed would trounce anything else.

FTTC is available from quite a few suppliers - IDNet, Zen, Aquiss, ADSL24, BT

BT's brand name for it is "Infinity"

Note that BT Infinity is indeed throttled/traffic managed so as to discourage the use of P2P and makes it very, very slow. On the other hand the traffic management is said to be quite intelligent and may not include what you are doing - but best to check (and get it in writing!) because it doesn't have a money back guarantee and has an 18 month contract.

All that said, FTTC isn't widely available so you'll need to see if that's an option for you.

meggsy

If you are still deciding have a look at Zen.
Can recommend them after switching four years ago, and they have a monthly contract for BB and Home phone, so you are not locked in for a year or more.

serious_saver

We have Sky broadband unlimited and it's generally good. Our line speed is pretty bad usually between 1 and 1.5 mbps but my OH manages to play WoW without too much difficulty most of the time.

However when it is bad it's REALLY bad and the latency is ridiculous. It's particularly problematic when I am connected to my laptop or on xbox live. If you have a good line speed then I think it should be fine but if you don't then you may have problems connecting both PC's.

With the line speed it also take a really long time to download patches. He has to start them before he goes to work and leave the PC on all day if there's a large patch to download. When cataclysm came out we had to put his PC in the boot of the car and take it to my parents to download the patches (they have BT infinity and it's wonderful)

StuieUK34

PN = Throttled to the point of no internet...
BT = not far from the above
o2 = unless on legacy package, just as useless..
FTTC products - there fast, but do research as to who to use with regards to throttling....
SKY & BE = Real Internet Providers... nuff said