Changed my ISP

floppybootstomp

floppybootstomp

sugar 'n spikes
Moderator
Joined
Mar 5, 2002
Messages
20,281
Reaction score
1,794
After 15 years and a month with Zen, I'm now with Hyperoptic.

And I would have been a bit of a mug not to have changed.

Apart from the financial consideration my speeds are now more than triple what they were (see speed test pic). And they're almost identical up and down.

I had been paying £30 for the internet service and £17 for the telephone line a month and now I've gone from £47 pcm to £23 pcm for the first year and then £38 pcm thereafter. I was on a months contract with Zen and could pay any old way I like and whenever I liked but with Hyperoptic I'm on a one year contract and have to pay by direct debit but with the money saved I can put up with that.

The installation was painless and Hyperoptic supplied the modem/router which has four ethernet ports and two telephone ports. A telephone number is also supplied. It is SO refreshing to be completely free of BT though I rarely used the landline.

I'm wondering whether the extra speed will give me an extra edge in online gaming.

And I've just realised this router isn't wireless which means my printer - located in my bedroom - isn't going to work unless I bring it into the living room and hardwire it. I suppose I'll have to get a wireless NIC card to enable wireless printing but not entirely sure.

My speed with Zen via the local BT exchange was around 47, here's my new speeds:

Speed test.webp
 
Very nice! :thumb:

I remember when you originally said they were available, and wondered if you would jump ship.

Out of interest, what hardware did they give you, and how was the install process?

I'd say you might notice the super low latency rather than extra speed while gaming, but it depends what sort of ping you had before, and also what kind of route your traffic took with Zen, though living in or near the centre of London I'd imagine its the same.

My line rental is with Zen along with my Internet. Sticking with BT for line rental is so unnecessary these days.

Enjoy your new found speed! :)
 
Brilliant! I'm really pleased you jumped ship, as those speeds are a huge improvement. Do you notice much different in day-to-day browsing out of curiosity?

floppybootstomp said:
I'm wondering whether the extra speed will give me an extra edge in online gaming.
Click to expand...

Wishful thinking @floppybootstomp :lol:...

I guess your ping times were pretty good before as most UK gaming servers are located down your way, but every bit helps. Even from Manchester my ping times are <30ms to most London game servers.
 
I have Hyperoptic in my area and according to one of my neighbours our building has been surveyed and they are just waiting for the building owners to give the go ahead.
 
VR: The hardware is their own branded (as far as I can tell) modem/router, 4 port, 2 phone ports, not wireless.

The install was simple, they ran a cable from the ceiling in the communal hall area (this is a block of flats) through to my living room and mounted a socket near my computer at low level. I had to wait about 15 minutes for their head office to activate the connection remotely and then I was away. The whole process took about 40 minutes.

I had to log in to Google/Gmail to be able to receive email and change the printer port from Network to USB but that was it.

Ian: Browsing is now noticeably quicker. As is logging on to game servers. (I'm using MS Explorer 11 within Win 10).

My favourite CoD4 server used to have a ping of between 30 and 40 and now it's around 20. Best server ping is 9. I did actually come first on one map match this evening but that's probably a coincidence as I can't detect any difference in game play speed.

TXD: That ping figure of 2 was to London, which is where I am. I can select different locations to ping from, I'll probably try that.
 
Back
Top