Broadband Guide

Best broadband for gaming

Updated: Wednesday 09 November, 2011

By Editorial - news@consumerchoices.co.uk

There’s nothing more frustrating than having your online gaming interrupted by a slow connection. We’ve put together a list of the best broadband packages for gamers and some technical specs to look out for.

The best providers for online gaming

If you want the best gaming experience, make sure the provider you're switching to has:

• Unlimited downloads or a high download allowance
• Fast download speeds
• Fast upload speeds
• Reliable connection
• Low latency and pings
• XBox, PlayStation or Nintendo Wii compatible modem or router

Some providers offer gamer-specific broadband packages, or ones that can be “personalised” to suit your needs, such as Plusnet Broadband's (www.Plus.net) Pro add-on which optimises gaming traffic, reduces latency and allows for quicker ping times.

BE Broadband (www.BeThere.co.uk) also allows users to optimise their line for gaming, speed, reliability, or general web surfing. BE’s packages are ideal for gamers as they’ve been designed for heavy internet users; it offers uploads at up to 2.5Mb and its fair usage policy is rarely applied. It also has tips on its member website on how to get the best speeds from your up to 24Mb broadband connection.

O2 Broadband (www.O2.co.uk), which owns BE Broadband, is also a great option for gamers. It offers download speeds of up to 20Mb broadband and uploads at up to 2.5Mb on The Works package, giving you an even better gaming experience. Like BE, it offers “unlimited broadband” downloads on its top two packages and its fair usage policy is rarely applied.

Truly unlimited broadband

The only provider currently offering a truly unlimited broadband package is Sky Broadband (www.Sky.com) with its Unlimited tariff. With this package you can game all day and download as much as you want without having to worry about fair usage policies or traffic management.

Virgin Media's (www.Virginmedia.com) XXL up to 50Mb broadband package is worth considering for gamers too as it is only file sharing traffic that is affected by traffic management, all other downstream usage is unaffected.

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