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Most internet service providers (ISPs) tend to sell their service based on two variables: bandwidth and data allowance. For the most part, this is enough information for potential customers to make a decision about the service (and provider) they will ultimately choose. There is a group of users, however, for whom the above, while important, should certainly not be the be-all and end-all in any decision.

So why do we believe that Vellore Net should be the ISP of choice for gamers? There are a number of additional factors that gamers should take into account when choosing an ISP, which will be discussed below.

No doubt, keen gamers will already be aware of much of the terminology that follows. Some explanation will be given, however, if only to serve as a reminder or as an introduction to those new to the world of gaming.

Latency

Latency, or lag, or ping will be a familiar term to many online gamers. In perhaps its simplest terms, it refers to the amount of time it takes a packet of data to reach its intended destination. For gamers, a more vivid explanation might come in the form of the following example:

Imagine playing a first-person shooter game, pressing the trigger to shoot an opponent, and then waiting a second for your weapon the fire in the game. This would be an extreme example of lag, and in such a scenario your character probably wouldn’t last very long.

For gamers, a simple rule applies: the lower the latency the better. Anything under 100ms should be acceptable but the ideal aim should be for latency to be no more than about 30-50ms.

A somewhat related concept, jitter, is the variation (in milliseconds) in latency.

If you have a typical latency of 100ms and zero jitters, gameplay would tend to be very smooth and predictable. However, if your jitter was, say, 100ms then this means that on occasions your latency might be as high as 200ms.

Like latency, the goal is for your jitter to be as low as possible. Many gamers talk of ‘latency spikes’ – moments when latency suddenly jumps up to unacceptably high levels. This is invariably caused by the jitter of the connection.

If you are experiencing high levels of latency or jitter, there are some steps you can take to improve the situation:

⇒ Use a wired connection (that is, physically plug your PC or console into the router) rather than wireless if possible. This is likely to produce a notable improvement

⇒  Shut down bandwidth-consuming processes on your PC – if you’re downloading or streaming something while you’re gaming, this can have a considerable effect on latency.

A good internet connection should provide low-enough latency and jitter to enable smooth online gaming most of the time and, from this point of view, typically, there will not be many variations between providers.

Occasionally, though, problems with latency can crop up due to issues on the line, or on your ISP’s network. The advantage of choosing an ISP like Vellore Net is the expert service and tech support you will receive. Our staff will work to ensure that you receive the very best product at all times, and that includes working to improve your latency should there be an issue.

Speed

Speed is a much more straightforward concept to deal with – the higher the better, right?

Well, we will examine shortly why a faster connection can indeed be of great benefit. However, for the actual playing of games connection speed tends to show diminishing returns once a certain level is achieved.

For many online games, much of the processing tends to take place locally (on your machine). The amount of data that gets transferred in a second is usually fairly low. For this reason, a connection of about 1Mbps is usually adequate for playing games online.

There is a fairly major caveat to this, though. This might be considered a benchmark figure, but it leaves little margin for error. If other people are using your connection at the same time, if you’re also engaged in voice chat with your gaming colleagues or if your connection speed tends to vary, then a 1Mbps connection might not be enough.

However, given that the vast majority of connections today are much quicker than this, the chances are your connection speed will be more than adequate for your gaming needs.

Where speed does become an important issue is in the downloading of data. Whether you’re downloading entire games (which might be tens of gigs in size) or sizeable game updates and patches, a fast internet connection can be of real benefit. The faster your connection, the sooner your game data will download, and the sooner you can get on with playing.

Data allowance

As mentioned above, the amount of data you use while gaming is likely to be fairly low. For this reason, it is not essential to have a huge download limit if you are predominantly using the internet for playing games.

However, as also touched on above, many gamers today not only download their games from online repositories but frequent game updates can often be several gigabytes in size. For this reason, a good (preferably unlimited) data allowance is recommended.

Traffic management

Many ISPs advertise a certain feature, such as a particular speed or download limit, but tend to provide varying degrees of traffic management.

For example, an ISP might slow down your connection speed at certain times of the day, or when you’ve downloaded a certain amount of data in a month.

As well as throttling speeds, an ISP might put restrictions on certain types of traffic passing through their network.

At Vellore Net, you won’t be victim to this type of management – we believe in providing you with what you’ve paid for. This means that, if you’re downloading lots of games, or you like to play even during the busiest periods of the day, you shouldn’t experience any degradation in performance.

Stability and reliability

It doesn’t matter how fast your connection is, or how low your latency is if your internet is going to be disconnecting every few minutes.

A stable, reliable internet connection is absolutely critical for online gaming.

At Vellore Net, we care about your experience, and we’ll do our utmost to ensure that you receive the best experience possible, no matter what you’re using the internet for. Check out our packages here.