Ping, packet loss, jitter - Best broadband for?

[Alan Medic]

My son assures me that when we had NTL pre Virgin his ping was often as low as 1. He likes a particular game he has been playing for years where all of the above matter. The above affect the quality of Skype calls too which matters to my Mrs.

He's inclined to change from Virgin (where speeds are usually good) to BT Infinity. I think I can save some money too but wonder if anyone out there has a clue what I'm talking about (I hardly do) and would share their experience of other suppliers in the area.

Thank you in anticipation.

[*Bob*]

For gods sake man open some wine or something!

[*Bob*]

It's Friday night!

[Alan Medic]

The wine has been opened. Any other clues?

[NewWave]

It doesn't matter who you go to,

It matters more how your connection is routed for Ping times.

[Alan Medic]

What determines that NewWave? I haven't a clue.

[Loz]

Ping times refer to how long a small message takes to get from your computer to some other computer and back again. Part of this is due to the connection speed and quality of your ISP, but the rest is all the other connections you bounce through, which is what New Wave is referring to.

What this means is that your ISP can be significant, but where the receiving computer is also very relevant, if not more so. Pinging another computer in London should (!) be quicker that pinging something in, say. the US.

Also, you often see ping speeds get faster from the initial speed as the internet 'learns' better paths to take for your requested connection.

E.g. if I ping Google in the US, I get a ping speed of about 21ms, but Google in the UK I get about 17ms. Pinging my own router (over wifi) takes me about 3ms. That's over a Virgin 50Mb line (which I am getting about 54Mb on a speed test!). None of those I would consider slow.

[NewWave]

If you are in the dos command window to send a ping you can also use the command tracert to visually see a data packet being sent and received and the amount of hops required for that packet to get to its destination.

This is for information only, if you are struggling with what a ping is anything else will also have a bit of a learning curve. These aren't impossible concepts to grasp, hence the ability for Loz to explain what is going on in a few line. SO be brave and have a look........