New to Sky - Higher ping (MS) than BT

[AshUK92]

Hi guys,

Recently switch the Sky Broadband as it promised higher speeds and lower cost. Techinically my speed has increased by a few MB/s (I'm in a slow internet area with 35-40mb/s down) which is great, however my ping in online games has increased. 

With BT my ping was anywhere between 10 - 15 ms to London game servers (also on packlosstest.com and pingplotter) and with Sky this has increase to 25 - 30 ms.  This is still considered a 'good' ping, but I am used to playing on low ping and its actually noticably different in competitive shooters like Valorant and CS:GO

Is there anything I can do to improve the ping? My home setup has stayed exactly the same except obviously changing the BT router out for the Sky Broadband Router.

Thanks in advance

[jamesn123]

@AshUK92 

Latency is never going to be identical when you change ISP because your connection is routed through different hardware and ISP servers. 

The exact cause of your latency increase could be one or more of the following;

- Sky's server hops are not as well optimised as BT's so your ping to particular game servers has increased

- Your line is still in the DLM training period, once it has stabilised you should get put onto a profile with lower ping

- The Sky hubs WiFi performance is not as good as the BT hubs if you are using WiFi. Or are you using ethernet?

[AshUK92]

Hey thanks for the response.

- If thats the case I guess this isn't something I can resolve by speaking with Sky directly?

- I am still within the 14 days DLM, but I always figured that was just fluff they use to get you through the 14 day cancellation period with minimal complaint? Whenever I've changed provider in the past i've literally never noticed a difference once the internet is up and running across the 14 days. I don't have knowledge of this though, completely annecdotal. 

- I'm on ethernet for my gaming PC. 

[jamesn123 · Accepted solution]

@AshUK92 

No its nothing Sky will be able to help with its just how their routing would be.

The training period isnt fluff no DLM does actually adjust your line each night around 1am for a period of 1-2 weeks to ensure it has the best speed vs stability. 

It may be that DLM has started by putting your line into interleaving mode which increases latency while prioritising stability and speed. If you do not have any faults on the line it should automatically clear the interleaving profile after the training period. 

[AshUK92]

@jamesn123 

Really appreciate the replies and insight. 

I'll wait out the full 14 days and hopefully will see an increase in MS.

On a slight tanget; do you have any idea if third-party routers could improve ping? I've been looking at 'gaming' routers recently, but they seem overpriced and despite their marketing claims I don't really understand how they could improve latency on a wired connection.  

[jamesn123]

@AshUK92 

Its certainly possible to improve ping by using gaming routers but to what extent would depend on your average ping currently and how your home network is used. Many of the gaming routers 'Ping enhancement' claims are often down to using very good QoS algorithms to ensure that your gaming device gets priority when it comes to internet access in your home. However if its just yourself or a quiet home then often you wouldnt really see an improvement. 

Obviously if you go down that route you'd need to buy a modem if you dont get a router that has a modem built in because the whole point would be to remove the Sky hub completely. 

Personally I went to an Asus RT-AX88u in combination with a TP-Link TD-W9970 modem and my ping went from around 14-15 to 12-13. However my change was more focused on getting better WiFi speeds and the bigger feature set of the Asus routers