My internet provider is tiscali, i currently have the 1mb package, its very cheap but i suspect it is a waste of money. i understand that during peak times 19-00 to 22-00 that shared bandwith means slower download speed/higher ping for online gaming, but i get this problem all day and night. For instance at 24.20 last night my internet download speed dropped to 204.10 kph, as checked on the tiscali speed checker, and my ping on servers for gaming was going from its normal 50 to 200, thats 60% drop in downloading and ping of 200 makes online gaming a no go. I have Mcafee firewall and virus scanner, i use spybot ans AD-Aware, and am i missing something that will give me a more constitant ping/download speed (a programme) or does my internet provider need to be kicked to the curb? I play online alot, although not that much at the moment what kind of provider should i be looking for if tiscali is not up to scratch.

Your connection speeds can be affected by two factors that are within the ISP's control. The first is known as contention. If your ISP uses a contention ratio of 1:20, which is common, then the ISP has provisioned enough capacity for you to obtain the full 1Mb bandwidth consistently all the time as long as you're the only person on your block of connections that's using the Internet. There are 19 other people on your block of connections in a 20:1 contention ratio. If 4 other people are connected at the same time as you, then there are 5 of you fighting for the same bandwidth. ISPs justify this by explaining that, whilst one person is downloading a web page (for a second or two), the other 4 people (or 19 in the worst case) are probably just reading the web pages that they've already downloaded. However, if 5 of you are all downloading large files that are going to take more than a second or two, then you're all going to get one fifth of the maximum bandwidth. That's why ISPs now have to advertise their services as "UP TO 1Mbps" or "UP TO 2Mbps", etc.

The other issue is how much capacity the ISP's network has. If they don't have enough DNS servers, mail servers, web servers, etc to cope with the amount of customers they have, then all of their services will be slow.

You can get an uncontended service but this is VERY expensive and almost always only within the reach of businesses. One company who I have a feeling can provide an uncontended service in the UK for consumers, however, is Pipex. They've dropped their prices recently but Pipex has traditionally been a "premium brand" company - in other words, you'll get a fantastic service off of their well-specced network and brilliant support and they'll have the happiest customers of any UK ISP ... but it costs you! You could check out their web site but, if they offer an uncontended service, it will be expensive.

Even if Pipex don't do an uncontended, or low-contention, consumer service and I was imagining it, it would still be worth checking them out. Ignoring cost, Tiscali is one of the worst ISPs and Pipex is widely regarded as the best.

Incidentally, I'm not sure what the Tiscali speed checker is trying to tell you. Data transfer (i.e. download) speed is measured in bits per second (bps) or kilobits per second (Kbps), not kilometres per hour (kph).

Are you sure that the 20-1 contention is worse than 50-1, i would have thought its the other way round. Why would buiness's use 20-1 ratios that cost more money if they were more congested? most broadband providers have 50-1 ratio, which to me means potentialy more uses on one line. i cannot imagine that some lines are smaller than others, its more like lines are set up to have x amont of users (ie 50,20.30/20,10,and perfect ratio 1) therefore 20-1 is more than twice as good as 50-1.

Originally Posted by eli

Are you sure that the 20-1 contention is worse than 50-1

No - when did I say that?

1:1 is an uncontended line, i.e. you have one connection out of a total of one connection, so you're the only person on your block. 1:20 means you have one connection out of a maximum of 20 on your block so that's potentially much worse. 50:1 is potentially two and a half times worse than that.

lol sorry, i misunderstood your reply, im on a contention of 50-1 atm, im looking at providers with less than that, i.e 20-1, i believe that will improve my chances of better speeds/pings for online games. Thanks for your help, i welcome it.