Need a serious internet plan for serious gamers!

[poggi]

Hi everyone,

I currently go to the University of New Hampshire (zip code 03824) and this coming summer and school year I will be living in a house with 4 other people. ALL of us are serious or semi-serious gamers and after searching for ISP's in the area, I am not sure what download and upload speed we would need so that all 5 of us could be playing online games(such as League of Legends) all at the same time maintaining low ping and making sure we don't drop connection. A few I have looked at are the Verizon Fios and Comcast packs that seem to offer between 50 down and 10-25 up speeds... Would one of these packages be sufficient to accommodate all of us with no latency or lag issues? I am a networking novice please help me out

Edit: Something I forgot to mention is that we are poor college students so we are looking for something as affordable as possible but still meeting our needs.
Thank you!

 

[leo2kp]

Bandwidth is different than latency. You can have 1GBps down but still have high latency. If you want a serious internet connection, buy your own high-quality hardware (including cables), and go for a business-class service.

 

[leo2kp]

BUT if business-class isn't an option, then 30mb+ should be fine. DSL vs Cable doesn't really matter as long as your uploads are decent. Unfortunately you can't test latency until you have the service installed. Where I live, CenturyLink DSL only offers 800k up, so I have to use Comcast.

 

[poggi]

Thanks for the input, I was under the impression upload speed will be more important than download for most online games.. Is this true?

 

[Tom Tancredi]

NO you have it opposite. Upload means your SENDING stuff to the Internet, download means your RECEIVING from the Internet. So UNLESS YOUR HOSTING your own game server (your SENDING to the INTERNET) you all would be connecting to a source ON the Internet and PULLING DOWN what is happening on that server 'out there'.

I would suggest the HIGH SPEED CAPABLE service plan Comcast offers, OR switch to Business Class as you are all 'serious' gamers. Pro Gamers only do 'business class' stuff because they want the same capability, service and response time as a business (miss a match and your out cash prize right? business unavailable for online orders misses out on being paid right? SAME THING).

If your that serious think like a business, apply business basics (buy Idiot's Guide to Business basics) and you will always keep yourselves at the top tier. If you do it half assed, then all you get is the other half of the ass out of it.

 

[bill001g]

Take a look at this. This is one of the few game companies I have ever see that even discusses in detail of how there networks are put together. It is also one of the very few that give lists of ISP they directly use.

Based purely on this list I would choose comcast over verizon because at least in theory you should go directly from comcast to LoL private network at the nearest location...likely newyork for you.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/help-support/0hVNFnPH-na-server-roadmap-update-pops-peering-and-the-north-bridge