Games

Best Broadband for Online Gaming

Gaming is all about timing, precision, and speed. Choosing the right broadband package could be the difference between taking home the big prize and losing out altogether. Here is what you should look for to ensure that you have the best competitive advantage.

Favour Upload over Download

The broadband connection needs to be fast, but as an online gamer, you should lean more towards having faster uploading speeds than downloading speeds. Think of it this way- uploading transfers information from your console to the internet, and the higher the megabits of data transferred per second, the faster your play will be. Downloading, on the other hand, is all about how fast you can get new games and other downloadable content from the internet.

The download speeds, unless they are extremely slow, do not directly affect the game you are playing. The best gamers have instantaneous actions, not because of their download speeds, but because of their upload speeds. When choosing a broadband package, focus on faster uploading because most service providers market themselves on their ability to download information faster without giving much thought to their upload speeds.

High Allowance

Gamers focus solely on speed without giving much thought to quantity. The download limits provided by the broadband package should be sufficient to allow you to download large quantities of gaming data. For the highest allowances, you should go for unlimited broadband connections.

Low Latency

Latency is also known as lag, and it is the time taken for information to get transferred from your console to the web, and then back to your console. With lag, you want to go for the lower measurements. This especially applies to first person shooter games like Call of Duty. If you want your console actions to feel more instant, then choose a broadband package that provides you with the lowest possible latency. Measured in milliseconds, the highest lag time you should settle for should be 100ms. Going any higher than this number is not worth your money and time. Lag is however affected by distance. If you are further away from the game server, then you will most certainly experience lag, and although the best broadband service providers have developed systems with latency as low as 15ms, not even them can fix the problem of distance.

Limited Packet Loss

Packet loss makes latency feel like a breeze. With packet loss, gamers will lose chunks of date (usually called data packets) before they reach their destination. Whenever you have a frozen screen, a stuttering game, or when your game skips forward for no reason at all, then you are experiencing packet loss. The good news is there are broadband packages that can fix this. Measured in percentages, the lower the number, the less information you are losing. Go for the packages that offer a packet loss of 0.55 percent or lower. The best in the market right now offers a 0.11 percent packet loss, not bad.

Stay in the Game

If you ever hope to win at anything, then you first have to make sure you stay in the game. Sure, some connections will give you no packet loss and low latency, but if you lose your connection halfway through the game, not even a 0 percent packet loss can make you win. Find a reliable broadband connection, one with the least amount of interruptions. If you have to settle for lesser, then make sure it is a package that resolves connection problems quickly so you can get on with your game. You will not get this kind of information from the service providers themselves, therefore, do some research of your own. Read reviews and articles from independent researchers before you decide what the right package to get is.

Low Jitter
Last but not least, you should consider the jitter rate offered by a broadband package. Jitter shows you how stable your connection is, and low jitter means a stable connection. Try to find a broadband package that offers jitter buffering so that instead of having consistent jitter throughout your game, you will get about 20 milliseconds of buffering, and afterwards, you can happily continue gaming uninterrupted.

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