Should I get ISDN?

  • Thread starter old.CamdenTownResident
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old.CamdenTownResident

Guest
Cant get adsl or cable. I will kill myself if im a hpb much longer. Isdn seems to be only choice, but, i reckon its a rip off in comparison to cable and adsl.

Still its my only choice. Worse is, i rent my flat, so its a fact that ill have to get rid of the isdn when i move out(which is inevitable). Apparently this will cost further 50 quid. so confirm this for me, 50 install, 40 amonth plus 13 quid free calls, 50 quid to get rid of it. Plus unmettered acces costs, so its 40 quid a month (about) taking free calls into account, which is a stretch (ie absolute most i can afford). Is it worth it? Let me know your isdn experiences and what kinda pings i can expect on Counterstrike.#

Thanks in advance
 
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granny

Guest
I was forced to use ISDN for about a year in my last house due to no cable or ADSL availability and tbh yes, it's overpriced, but for gaming it's streets ahead of a modem.

You should get pings in the 90-120 range, which may not sound like a lot lower than a good modem ping but for that you get a silky smooth, low-packetloss connection that makes a modem connect feel like a bit of string and some tin cans. Of course the quality of your connect will depend on the ISP - if you're going to use something like BTi or Freeserve unmetered then you *will* still get a pants connection. My advice would be to switch to BarryDial for gaming and use an 0800 for surfing etc. I used to get pings of 50-60 to BW servers on BarryDial and pings of 120-150 using Freeserve anytime.

To be honest, whether or not ISDN is worth it is up to you - how much do you value your gaming? If you're willing to spend what is really a LOT of money (certainly compared to true broadband solutions like CM or ADSL) then go for it. If not then hold off until something better becomes available in your area or you move house.
 
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old.Reverend Flatus

Guest
Granny is right except...
You should get a better ping than 90-120 but this depends on the game you are connecting to. On a good day I can ping the Barrysworld Q2 servers at 50-60 connecting to Demon. If I connect using Barrydial that ping drops to 40-50 (lowest ping I've had is 26!) but, and this is the important bit, packet loss is negligible. Connecting via Demon means several hops across routers which, at busy times, can cause packet loss of up to 20%.
This is using an internal ISDN card by the way, I don't recommend using an external TA as this will definitely increase your ping due to the inherent latency of the connection between the TA and your PC.
There is another consideration. With ISDN you have all the bandwidth for yourself but with cable and ADSL it is shared which means that at peak times you may have problems with gaming.
 
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shabazz

Guest
well ive got isdn atm, and its cool for gaming.
with bt anytime i usually get 40-50 pings on barrysworld, so everything is cool for me ;)

(traces give a straight 30, but this seems to be localised to me - friends with same isp, number of hops etc, all have double my ping so beware)

2 points - get a good isp
- get a decent card

it IS expensive, but is a LOT better then a modem (stability being the main point)
 
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Embattle

Guest
I've got ISDN at the moment although I'm gonna change to Cable modem very soon. ISDN gives average downloads but gives good gaming pings.

The ASUS card tends to be the best one to get and doesn't cost that much.
 
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throdgrain

Guest
i agree with emb. isdn is fine for gaming,i also have an asus card and get pings of 40-70 .not so good for downloading,but i dont do so much of that anyway.
i'd say it was alot,lot better than a modem m8,and not that expensive,whatever some impoverished folk like to say :)
 
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Wij

Guest
I have ISDN and ADSL. For gaming the difference between BWDial+ISDN and ADSL is pretty negligible (unless u play Q3 where players try to hog all the bandwidth.) For surfing and downloading you notice quite a difference tho.
 
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