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Before I begin I wrote this guide a while ago and have edited parts for GT5 but there maybe a few errors. Sorry if I focus on UK ISPS only but my knowledge of ISPS around the world is limited.
I have decided to make this thread due to numerous reasons. For starters how we use our broadband connections now compared to just a few years ago has changed dramatically. Another reason is recently I have become aware of some people paying way over the odds compared to what they could actually get and because of the economic crisis many of us could do with saving £10 a month just to help pay our fuel bills. If I told you my neighbours pay £24.99 for 2mb broadband and yet they could get 14mb for £10 im sure you would be amazed at the price difference.
As the release of GT5 is coming closer some may need to sort out there broadband connections. Having an upload speed of 128kbps is really something you want to avoid when hosting a room on GT5 (See Virgin media) and if your serious about racing online you really need as fast as possible upload speed.
The first step you need to take is to see what is available at your telephone exchange. If you click on the link below and enter either your postcode, tele no, or name of exchange you will see what is available. What you particularly need to look for is LLU operators and also if a target date has been set for 21CN.
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php
Now you have done this you need to find out what speeds you can get on either ADSL or ADSL+2. The first step is to click on the link below and find out your distance from exchange. Now this is measured as the crow flies I.e direct route but the actual cable length could be longer.
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/distance.php
If you want a more accurate measure of what speeds are possible on your line you need to find out your line attenuation (down). Briefly your line attenuation is the amount of noise on your line which is measured in DB. The greater the distance from exchange the greater the DB. You can find out your current line attenuation by logging into your router and looking at the details of your line stats. Once you have done this you can click on the link below and find out what is possible on ADSL+2. As an example a line attenuation of 40DB will give you between 8-12mb download speeds but a line attenuation of 20DB will give you 14-18mb download speeds. If however you can only get ADSL then 40DB will only give you between 2-4mb. This is why I wanted you to check for LLU operators because it is these who offer ADSL+2 rather than the bog standard BT ADSL.
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed2.php
Now I have explained that I shall explain what the pros & cons are of various ISPS and what type of broadband they offer. I cannot include all of them so have stuck with the main providers.
BT, Tiscali, AOL etc.
I have included these together because to be honest the speeds offered are very similar as these are all ADSL providers. I must admit to not being a fan of ADSL anymore largely due to the poor speeds, expensive prices. For example BT option 1 offers upto 8mb with 10GB useage limit for £15.99 a month. This is really poor value in my opinion and the speeds are often nowhere near 8mb with the average ADSL speed being 2-4mb. To receive the 8mb you would need a line attenuation of 10DB which means you need to live very close to exchange. The main problem for most people though is this is the only type of broadband you can receive which again is why I said to look for LLU operators at your exchange.
Virgin media
Most probably the most discussed ISP on forums for very good reasons. Now technically speaking VM should offer the best broadband due to its fibre optics, although its still copper going into your home which they fail to mention. However for GT5 I would actually avoid Virgin media like the plague. The simple reason is called subscriber traffic management system (see link below for details). Now it depends on what package your on but as an example if your on the L package and you were to download more than 1.2GB between 4pm-9pm your speed will be throttled to 2.5mb down/128kb upload for 5hrs. Now 1.2GB is hardly anything these days, 1 demo and maybe an episode of eastenders! What is even more important is the very poor upload speeds especially if you tried hosting. If your on the XL package then only heavy users are likely to breech the limit but if youre a M package subscriber you can forget about downloading demos etc. My biggest gripe with Virgin is the limits because I can understand restrictions but not to the level VM employ.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/...e-usage-allowances-on-broadband-products.html
Sky (LLU operator)
A fairly good ISP and if your already a Sky TV subscriber then I would strongly recommend them. They offer free broadband for 2mb, £5 for 8mb, £10 for 16mb. I believe the upload speeds are 700kb although I will need someone to confirm this. The only downside with Sky is your restricted to using their router.
O2 (LLU operator)
A relatively new ISP which has come in and shown other ISPS how it should be done. O2 offer 8mb, 16mb, 20mb with upload speeds being 1.3mb for 8/16mb packages and 1.6mb for 20mb packages. The cost is £12.50 for 8mb, £15 for 16mb, £20 for 20mb. However if youre a O2 mobile customer including PAYG you get a £5 reduction. The download limits are unlimited but I spoke to O2 and asked them what amount of downloading would cause a warning and I was told 200GB! The other bonuss of O2 is customer support including technical queries is free phone and is based in the UK. As far as im aware they do not apply any traffic shaping whatsoever even during peak hrs. As you can tell im a big fan of O2 especially when their upload speeds exceed some ISPS download speeds.
Bethere (LLU operator)
This company is now actually owned by O2 and use the same network. However they do offer different packages with different options. This ISP is most probably the very best for online gamers especially hardcore FPS fans. The speeds offered are 8mb, 16mb, 24mb with upload speeds upto 2.5mb. However if you have an upload speed of 2.5mb you will lose some download speed. The main reason for being the ideal ISP for online gamers is the ability to make changes on your line. For example you can lower the SNRM with gains you extra speed but loses some stability or you can increase the SNRM with loses speed but gains stability. What is even better is you can turn interleaving off and use fastpath with greater reduces your ping meaning you gain that advanatage in FPS.
As you can see from the above there is a vast difference between prices and speeds and paying extra doesnt mean better quality, if anything the reverse is true. You may wonder why these operators offer faster speeds but at reduced prices. The simple reason is because they use their own equipment and because they dont have to pay BT like other ADSL ISPS they pass this saving onto the customers. Also they use ADSL+2 rather than ADSL which is why down/upload speeds are faster.
We are going to see changes over the next few yrs as BT roll out there ADSL+2 service with plans of rolling out their own fibre optics. However in the mean time my advice would be to change to an LLU operator (if possible) and wait and see what services are available in the future. From my experience many are wary of changing ISPS and stick with the attitude of not fixing what isnt broken. However can you really turn down a saving of £15 a month? If many are wary of problems connecting to PSN many ISPS offer routers which are compatible with PSN and with UPnP being enabled on default many wont experience problems.
So in summary if your current ISP is ADSL i.e BT, Tiscali but according to the link I provided you can use O2, Bethere, Sky. My advice is switch because your experience on GT5 will be much improved especially when hosting races. Also you dont have to worry about download limits.
I have decided to make this thread due to numerous reasons. For starters how we use our broadband connections now compared to just a few years ago has changed dramatically. Another reason is recently I have become aware of some people paying way over the odds compared to what they could actually get and because of the economic crisis many of us could do with saving £10 a month just to help pay our fuel bills. If I told you my neighbours pay £24.99 for 2mb broadband and yet they could get 14mb for £10 im sure you would be amazed at the price difference.
As the release of GT5 is coming closer some may need to sort out there broadband connections. Having an upload speed of 128kbps is really something you want to avoid when hosting a room on GT5 (See Virgin media) and if your serious about racing online you really need as fast as possible upload speed.
The first step you need to take is to see what is available at your telephone exchange. If you click on the link below and enter either your postcode, tele no, or name of exchange you will see what is available. What you particularly need to look for is LLU operators and also if a target date has been set for 21CN.
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php
Now you have done this you need to find out what speeds you can get on either ADSL or ADSL+2. The first step is to click on the link below and find out your distance from exchange. Now this is measured as the crow flies I.e direct route but the actual cable length could be longer.
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/distance.php
If you want a more accurate measure of what speeds are possible on your line you need to find out your line attenuation (down). Briefly your line attenuation is the amount of noise on your line which is measured in DB. The greater the distance from exchange the greater the DB. You can find out your current line attenuation by logging into your router and looking at the details of your line stats. Once you have done this you can click on the link below and find out what is possible on ADSL+2. As an example a line attenuation of 40DB will give you between 8-12mb download speeds but a line attenuation of 20DB will give you 14-18mb download speeds. If however you can only get ADSL then 40DB will only give you between 2-4mb. This is why I wanted you to check for LLU operators because it is these who offer ADSL+2 rather than the bog standard BT ADSL.
http://www.dslzoneuk.net/maxspeed2.php
Now I have explained that I shall explain what the pros & cons are of various ISPS and what type of broadband they offer. I cannot include all of them so have stuck with the main providers.
BT, Tiscali, AOL etc.
I have included these together because to be honest the speeds offered are very similar as these are all ADSL providers. I must admit to not being a fan of ADSL anymore largely due to the poor speeds, expensive prices. For example BT option 1 offers upto 8mb with 10GB useage limit for £15.99 a month. This is really poor value in my opinion and the speeds are often nowhere near 8mb with the average ADSL speed being 2-4mb. To receive the 8mb you would need a line attenuation of 10DB which means you need to live very close to exchange. The main problem for most people though is this is the only type of broadband you can receive which again is why I said to look for LLU operators at your exchange.
Virgin media
Most probably the most discussed ISP on forums for very good reasons. Now technically speaking VM should offer the best broadband due to its fibre optics, although its still copper going into your home which they fail to mention. However for GT5 I would actually avoid Virgin media like the plague. The simple reason is called subscriber traffic management system (see link below for details). Now it depends on what package your on but as an example if your on the L package and you were to download more than 1.2GB between 4pm-9pm your speed will be throttled to 2.5mb down/128kb upload for 5hrs. Now 1.2GB is hardly anything these days, 1 demo and maybe an episode of eastenders! What is even more important is the very poor upload speeds especially if you tried hosting. If your on the XL package then only heavy users are likely to breech the limit but if youre a M package subscriber you can forget about downloading demos etc. My biggest gripe with Virgin is the limits because I can understand restrictions but not to the level VM employ.
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/...e-usage-allowances-on-broadband-products.html
Sky (LLU operator)
A fairly good ISP and if your already a Sky TV subscriber then I would strongly recommend them. They offer free broadband for 2mb, £5 for 8mb, £10 for 16mb. I believe the upload speeds are 700kb although I will need someone to confirm this. The only downside with Sky is your restricted to using their router.
O2 (LLU operator)
A relatively new ISP which has come in and shown other ISPS how it should be done. O2 offer 8mb, 16mb, 20mb with upload speeds being 1.3mb for 8/16mb packages and 1.6mb for 20mb packages. The cost is £12.50 for 8mb, £15 for 16mb, £20 for 20mb. However if youre a O2 mobile customer including PAYG you get a £5 reduction. The download limits are unlimited but I spoke to O2 and asked them what amount of downloading would cause a warning and I was told 200GB! The other bonuss of O2 is customer support including technical queries is free phone and is based in the UK. As far as im aware they do not apply any traffic shaping whatsoever even during peak hrs. As you can tell im a big fan of O2 especially when their upload speeds exceed some ISPS download speeds.
Bethere (LLU operator)
This company is now actually owned by O2 and use the same network. However they do offer different packages with different options. This ISP is most probably the very best for online gamers especially hardcore FPS fans. The speeds offered are 8mb, 16mb, 24mb with upload speeds upto 2.5mb. However if you have an upload speed of 2.5mb you will lose some download speed. The main reason for being the ideal ISP for online gamers is the ability to make changes on your line. For example you can lower the SNRM with gains you extra speed but loses some stability or you can increase the SNRM with loses speed but gains stability. What is even better is you can turn interleaving off and use fastpath with greater reduces your ping meaning you gain that advanatage in FPS.
As you can see from the above there is a vast difference between prices and speeds and paying extra doesnt mean better quality, if anything the reverse is true. You may wonder why these operators offer faster speeds but at reduced prices. The simple reason is because they use their own equipment and because they dont have to pay BT like other ADSL ISPS they pass this saving onto the customers. Also they use ADSL+2 rather than ADSL which is why down/upload speeds are faster.
We are going to see changes over the next few yrs as BT roll out there ADSL+2 service with plans of rolling out their own fibre optics. However in the mean time my advice would be to change to an LLU operator (if possible) and wait and see what services are available in the future. From my experience many are wary of changing ISPS and stick with the attitude of not fixing what isnt broken. However can you really turn down a saving of £15 a month? If many are wary of problems connecting to PSN many ISPS offer routers which are compatible with PSN and with UPnP being enabled on default many wont experience problems.
So in summary if your current ISP is ADSL i.e BT, Tiscali but according to the link I provided you can use O2, Bethere, Sky. My advice is switch because your experience on GT5 will be much improved especially when hosting races. Also you dont have to worry about download limits.
