The Best Internet for Gamers: Pros and Cons of All Kinds of Internet for Gaming

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Over the past several years, Internet connectivity and integration has become a major element in more and more video games. Originally, the Internet was only useful for direct multiplayer interaction, whether competitive or cooperative. Now, there are many more uses for the Internet: sharing user-generated content, collecting achievements, maintaining high score boards, and centralizing the fan base into a community. That means having a consistent and fast Internet connection is a bigger part of the gaming experience than it was in the past. Because of that, we are going to run down the major types of Internet connection and discuss how they stack up for gamers in terms of quality and characteristics.

Cable

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First of all, let’s talk about cable. Cable is the gold standard for Internet nowadays, and it’s not hard to see why: performance. The major offerings from Comcast and Verizon can reach 100 MB/s in the higher-end packages, which is plenty for gaming. Just about any level of intensity and speed should pass through such a connection largely seamlessly. There is one caveat, however. Using wifi instead of a wired connection makes speed and stability drop dramatically. So if you have an Ethernet cable, make sure to use it. Otherwise, all of that speed is pretty much going to waste. Wireless signals are subject to interference and also lose signal strength as you get farther from the antenna.

DSL

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Next up is DSL. DSL is a holdover from the pre-cable era. For many households, DSL was the first upgrade from dialup. In many parts of the world, DSL is still the standard form of Internet access. The problem with DSL is that it really cannot compete with cable. If cable is available in your area, then will outperform DSL by just about every metric. That does not mean DSL is useless, though, because there are still some parts of the US that lack cable access. DSL can manage speeds that are not too far from cable, depending on the specific situation, so it might even make a good budget choice in some contexts. DSL has the advantage that it is usually significantly cheaper. Aside from that, there is not much to recommend DSL. For American users, DSL is a value option for people who really want to cut back on their Internet bill.

Satellite or VSAT internet

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Satellite Internet, or VSAT Internet, is a special case. In terms of performance on paper, VSAT equipment really cannot deliver the same numbers as its peers- its bandwidth is poor, it has problems with multiple devices, and it requires setting up cumbersome equipment. So why use it at all? Because sometimes there is no other option. There are many industries that rely on operations out in the field without a permanent Internet connection to the site, such as logging, mining, and fishing. In those cases, VSAT steps in to fill the gap. By the numbers, satellite internet is among the worst choices, but in reality, when it is the only choice, it performs quite well, considering the circumstances. VSAT can definitely support some gaming. It might not be able to handle the more precise or fast-paced games as well as cable, but it does a fine job of filling in the gaps. That matters, because it is much easier to deal with months in the field away from civilization when you can still get online for gaming.

Fiber Optic

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Finally, fiber optic connections. Fiber was touted as the new gold standard, primarily because Verizon pushed it as the wave of the future. It is true that fiber does perform much better than cable and the prices are not that much higher. The problem is that installing a whole new network of fiber optic cables proved too expensive for Verizon. As a result, only a small part of the nation can actually access a true fiber connection. In places where the FiOS product is available, it tends to be the best choice for Internet- it simply has more speed and signal strength than anything that came before it. But for those of us who do not have the luxury of choosing FiOS, we might be in for a long wait. Verizon has no immediate plans to resume a large-scale expansion of their network. Google has unveiled a fiber project, but that is expanding extremely slowly, a city or two per year. It’s not a viable option for now.
This information should be everything you need to make an informed decision about what kind of Internet service to seek out. The key is that performance is important, but a wired connection will always beat a wireless one, so remember that if you need to choose between the two. Do everything you can to get an Ethernet cable to make the stretch.

 

By:  Vincent Stokes 

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