Ghost Gamer Broadband launches in the UK

[Ttaskmaster]

Eh, another idiot tax, this one aimed at people who think RGB are the same as go-faster stripes.

RGB is far superior to stripes of all kinds... except full-on RGB LED strips, perhaps, but only those actually embedded as Tron-style accents along the bodywork. Under-sill and skirted lighting doesn't qualify.

[will19565]

40ms for the competitor? Did they use satellite broadband or something.

where I live (North of Scotland) my ping on my land-line is ~60-80ms, my 4G data connection via my phone is ~60
both numbers are what I experience while playing Overwatch. YMMV

[Friesiansam]

Eh, another idiot tax, this one aimed at people who think RGB are the same as go-faster stripes.

But, surely RGB is just like go-faster stripes, more bling, more speed... Did not go-faster stripes make a Ford Capri mk2 1300L quicker. No, I didn't own one.

[Corky34]

where I live (North of Scotland) my ping on my land-line is ~60-80ms, my 4G data connection via my phone is ~60
both numbers are what I experience while playing Overwatch. YMMV

That's pretty high alright, although I'd guess that's much higher than the average. I know there's list of average speeds in certain areas but I've never seen one for pings, higher speeds are fine and all but i doubt the majority of people need anything more than 10Mbps download speeds, given the choice I'd prefer lower pings than higher speeds.

[Iota]

i doubt the majority of people need anything more than 10Mbps download speeds, given the choice I'd prefer lower pings than higher speeds.

God I'd hate to download games that slow, it's bad enough with ~34Mbps that I get now. Can live with slightly higher ping as long as there isn't massive jitter or packet loss involved.

[LSG501]

i doubt the majority of people need anything more than 10Mbps download speeds, given the choice I'd prefer lower pings than higher speeds.

When I had 8Mbit, I was more than happy with it, didn't think much of the 'slow' downloads, moved up to 80Mbit and server allowing can download at around 8MB/s, a literal 10x increase.

When I first made the change I wasn't overly impressed with the increased speed, in a way I was 'expecting more', but after a while you end up like I am now where you get impatient when you see a time of say 30mins to download 15gigs of data...at 8Mbit it would have taken me over 4 hours lol

While I wouldn't say no to faster pings I don't think I'd realistically notice going down from '10ms' that I get these days.

[dannyboy75]

That's pretty high alright, although I'd guess that's much higher than the average. I know there's list of average speeds in certain areas but I've never seen one for pings, higher speeds are fine and all but i doubt the majority of people need anything more than 10Mbps download speeds, given the choice I'd prefer lower pings than higher speeds.

I wouldn't want 10mbps these days, I don't really game online and it'd be no good for UHD streaming. But that's just me.

On a general note, I can't see how this Ghost ISP bunch can make these marketing claims as long as they're running over BTOR's part-copper infrastructure. Look on the forums of any ISP in the same situation and there are plenty of threads from gamers complaining about high pings.

[ToastyPorcupine]

If they can stick to their claims, this might be good, but I doubt it. It seems like there are just no good ISPs in the UK, and I wish things would improve in this country. I'm with Virgin Media currently and am sick of how often the connection just goes down entirely. It's so unreliable! And even when it works, half the time I don't get the proper speeds or suffer from packet loss. And don't get me started on the Super Hub router... I'll welcome any new ISPs.

[azrael-]

Now, I know I'm not the intended audience for this product, what with me not living in the UK and all, but such things have never stopped me from giving unsolicited comments before, so why start now...

First of all, when I saw the story on the frontpage I thought "what a funny looking egg". Only after did I realize it was supposed to be a ghost.

Next, what's with these speeds. At least for fibre 100 MBps should be the minimum. As has been stated above and in the article, the stated ping times aren't really anything special. Neither are the TTL times (which tbh I've never considered important for a low-latency connection).

I know it's a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, but my bog standard 55/12 MBps VDSL connection here in Denmark is easily able to achieve these figures. Completely without any "gam0rz tuning". And it's always a question of what you try to connect to. The fastest connection at your end doesn't help when the other side is on dial-up.

Which brings me to my last point, "for gamers, by gamers". Really? I'd much prefer "for gamers, by competent network professionals", but maybe that's just me.

[3dcandy]

Eh, another idiot tax, this one aimed at people who think RGB are the same as go-faster stripes.

Whaaaaaatttttt - go faster stripes and rgb don't do anythink?

[azrael-]

Eh, another idiot tax, this one aimed at people who think RGB are the same as go-faster stripes.

Well, they kind of are, aren't they...

[Ttaskmaster]

God I'd hate to download games that slow, it's bad enough with ~34Mbps that I get now.

I agree - Just because most people might only need 10Mbps, I would still want the option of Gbps or faster... especially since 80-100GB is what a lot of new games will end up being.

[peterb]

Having a low latency connection to the ISP gateway does not mean low latency over the rest of the network - latency is cumulative and depends on the eventual path to the end destination. You only have to run tracert to see the path length and the latency per hop.

[spacein_vader]

Having a low latency connection to the ISP gateway does not mean low latency over the rest of the network - latency is cumulative and depends on the eventual path to the end destination. You only have to run tracert to see the path length and the latency per hop.

The above illustrates perfectly why their claims of improved gaming would be nonsense even if all their statements are accurate. The whole chain needs to work well for good performance and any one link in it can make it unplayable.

It's also the same reason Killers network devices are pointless.

[Smudger]

I only play single-player games, can't wait to see what improvements this will bring me...