Are you an online gamer who loves to play games like Call of Duty, Counter-Strike, or any other rapid response games?
Do you and your friends hold weekly game nights to compete with the rest of the world to test your gaming skills while having fun together?
I do not know about you but I thoroughly enjoy such social gatherings that bring together my favorite people and my favorite activity.
Now, imagine you’re all gathered up at your place, and right when you were about to make the winning kill your internet gave up for a few seconds and when you got it back all was done with.
Your team had become the losers instead of the mighty winners.
Yes, you read it right; it only takes a few seconds. Whereas in other online activities you might not even realize it, in an online game it could completely turn the tables.
You sit there with your head down while your friends count to you the many times this same thing has happened yet you have done nothing about it.
You keep saying that there is nothing you can do about it, but you know you are not being honest neither with yourself nor with anyone else.
If you had done your research properly in the first place and gotten an internet suitable for your needs, this would not have been an issue.
If this scenario rings some bells, then let me tell you all is still not lost.
You can still switch to a better provider to cater to your gaming needs while staying in your budget too.
My first recommendation would be Spectrum internet that offers at least 100 Mbps of download speed and is the second-largest internet provider in the U.S. in terms of area coverage.
So you will likely have coverage in your area. Other good internet providers for gaming include Optimum internet, CenturyLink internet, and many more.
However, your gaming experience does not only depend on the download speed of your internet connection.
It is a major contributor but there are a few other things that need to be considered before choosing an internet service provider.
Games You Play
Gaming includes all sorts of games that include both offline and online games.
For this article, we will only discuss online games since offline games would only need the internet to download these games to your system, and then it’s your hardware that deals with the rest.
So for now, we’ll keep in mind driving the first-person shooter, fighting, role-playing, and any other games that can be played live.
You may choose to use your PC, Xbox, or PlayStation or whatever device you want but the rules still stay the same.
The kind of games you like to play would dictate the download speed, upload speed, and ping that you require.
A puzzle or role-playing strategy game would require much less speed than you first-person shooter games do, however, all sorts of games will benefit from a low ping.
Recommended Internet Connection
Besides a dial-up connection, almost all types of internet connections would work fine for gaming as long as they have a low enough ping.
A speed higher than 3 Mbps and a ping lower than 120 ms is required for a good enough gaming experience.
Let us discuss these in a bit more detail for your understanding to equip you to make a much better decision this time.
Internet Connection
A dial-up connection is to be the last resort in cases where you can find absolutely nothing else.
It is too slow for gaming so it will only suffice for your browsing or social media activities.
A satellite internet connection has the same problem. With ping rate so high that online gaming becomes impossible unless you’re playing games like Candy Crush on your phone.
Next in line is your mobile network data which works fine for gaming.
Speed and ping are both suitable for gaming and you can buy data packages according to the amount of gaming you do every day.
Mobile networks can however be disrupted by weather conditions resulting in lost signals.
Finally, the internet connections that work best for gaming are Fiber-optic, Cable, and DSL, with fiber optic being the best among the lot providing lightning fast internet with its symmetric speeds and low ping.
Cable internet is the second in line offering vast coverage and reasonable prices and DSL provides extensive coverage and acceptable speeds and ping.
Neither of them is easily affected by weather conditions making them the perfect choice for seamless gaming.
Ping rate
Ping rate is essentially the rate at which your data is transmitted between the remote server and your computer or gaming console.
The lower this rate is the better your game would perform. Ideally, the ping rate should be less than 30 ms (milliseconds) but that is usually not what we receive on most of our internet connections.
So as a rule of thumb anything under 100 ms should be good enough for gaming without any lag.
However, this is not something written in stone and varies according to the game you play.
Sometimes you may be kicked off a server even with ping lower than 100 ms.
Internet Speed
As discussed above, a download speed higher than 3 Mbps is good enough for gaming as long as the ping rate stays low.
This however is for a single player and you need to multiply 3 Mbps for each player with the number of players you usually have in your house in case of game nights.
Most internet providers will offer you much higher speeds than 3 Mbps but you need to ensure what your usage is before you decide upon an internet package.
Data Plans
If you’re a Spectrum internet user or are planning to sign up then the good news is that you don’t have to worry about data limits.
However, if you’re planning to use your mobile data or another provider that offers limited data usage then you’ll need to gauge your usage for this too.
1 GB of data per user is enough for gaming, therefore, a 2 GB plan for a single user should be sufficient for all kinds of online activities.
However, if there are multiple users and you often download games then something more than 20 GB should be chosen.
Conclusion
So now you know that there is no such thing as a “The Best Internet”. Any internet connection that fulfills your needs is what is best for you.