Rick Mur

Recently I walked by an ad of a cable internet provider claiming their network is the best choice for gamers. That stopped me. Not because I game competitively, but because I have spent 20 years building networks and doubted the claim.

That ad got me thinking about a bigger question. What does a gamer actually need from their network? Most people jump straight to speed. Download a game fast, must be good, right? The reality is more nuanced. It starts with physics, moves through peering and transit, and ends at whether your ISP even knows the networks that host your favorite games exist.

The Access Network: Physics Does Not Lie

The technology connecting your home to the internet sets the floor for what is possible. No amount of clever routing fixes a slow last mile.

Fiber delivers 1 to <10 ms latency to a local server. Light through glass, no shared medium, symmetrical speeds. This is the baseline everything else is measured against.

Cable (DOCSIS 3.1) typically lands between 10 and 20 ms. The coaxial last mile adds latency through RF signal conversion and shared bandwidth with your neighbours. DOCSIS 4.0 promises sub 1 ms targets and full duplex, but it is barely deployed as of early 2026. Even when it arrives at scale, the physics of RF over copper still sit behind end to end fiber.

5G Fixed Wireless runs 20 to 50 ms. Solid for casual gaming. Susceptible to interference, congestion, and weather. You will feel it in competitive play.

SpaceX Starlink has improved to 25 to 40 ms average, approaching a 20 ms target thanks to inter satellite laser links. For rural gamers who had no option below 600 ms on old school geostationary satellites, this is a different world. But jitter spikes during satellite handoffs and peak hour congestion mean it still cannot match a stable fiber line.

Was that cable ad fair? No. Fiber wins on physics. Cable is second. 5G and Starlink fill the gaps where wired options do not reach. But access technology is only half the story.

Where the Game Actually Lives

Your connection does not stop at the ISP. It needs to reach the servers running the game. This is where most gamers never think to look (or in the wrong place).

Cloud platforms host a huge portion of modern gaming. Fortnite runs across AWS datacenters globally. Microsoft Azure powers Xbox Live and supports publishers through PlayFab. Google Cloud runs gaming infrastructure with its Agones platform.

Specialised game hosting providers built their networks specifically for low latency gaming. i3D.net (a Ubisoft company) operates a privately owned global network in 60+ locations, hosting AAA titles. Nitrado runs game server infrastructure for both console and PC across key regions. Unity’s Multiplay division provides hosting across 70+ regions.

Some studios run their own networks entirely. Riot Games peers directly at internet exchanges worldwide, and pushes 500 to 1000 Gbps of traffic. They built their own network because they understood that controlling the path to the player is the only way to guarantee a consistent experience. That should tell you something about how much the network path matters.

The point: your ISP needs short, direct paths to these networks. If your traffic to an AWS data center in Frankfurt takes 4 hops, great. If it bounces through 3 countries first, you will feel every extra millisecond.

What Actually Matters for Gaming

Here is what determines whether your network is good for gaming, in order of what matters most:

Latency is king. Under 20 ms is excellent, 20 to 50 ms is solid, above 100 ms and you are at a real disadvantage in anything competitive.

Jitter is the variation in that latency. A rock steady 30 ms ping beats a ping that swings between 15 and 80 ms every time. Jitter causes rubber banding, stuttering, and that “hitching” feeling. Cable and 5G tend to struggle here during peak hours compared to fiber.

Packet loss is the silent killer. Even 1% causes noticeable stuttering. Your speed test will not show it. You need to measure it specifically.

Stability matters more than gamers appreciate. A 2 second drop once an hour will cost you a ranked match. ISP uptime, transit redundancy, and access network resilience all play a role.

Bandwidth is the most overrated metric. Most online games use 1 to 5 Mbps. You do not need a gigabit to play Fortnite. You need enough headroom so that someone else’s Netflix stream or your Discord voice chat does not create congestion on your line. 50 Mbps with zero jitter beats 500 Mbps with bufferbloat every single time.

Speaking of bufferbloat: when your router has oversized network buffers, large downloads can delay game packets behind bulk traffic. Modern routers with Smart Queue Management (SQM, using algorithms like CAKE or fq_codel) solve this. Many consumer routers do not have it enabled. This single issue explains why gamers with “fast” connections still lag.

Peering, Transit, and Why Your ISP’s Network Matters

The internet is thousands of interconnected networks. How your ISP connects to the rest determines your gaming experience more than anything on their marketing page.

Peering means 2 networks exchange traffic directly, either at an Internet Exchange Point (IXP) or via a private link. If your ISP peers with Riot Games, your Valorant traffic goes straight there. No middlemen, fewer hops, lower latency.

Transit means your ISP pays a third party to carry traffic it cannot deliver directly. More hops, more dependency, more risk of congestion.

The best ISPs for gaming have presence at major IXPs (AMS-IX, DE-CIX, LINX, etc.), direct peering with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud where game servers live, direct connections to gaming networks like i3D.net and Riot Games, multiple transit providers for redundancy, and native IPv6 support because gaming infrastructure is increasingly dual stack and IPv6 can offer cleaner routing with less legacy baggage.

None of this is on your ISP’s product page. But a small regional ISP that peers heavily at local exchanges will often deliver a better gaming experience than a large national provider with a congested backbone.

Tools to Check for Yourself

You do not need a networking degree. Here is your toolkit:

PeeringDB (peeringdb.com): Look up your ISP and see where they peer and with whom. Then look up Riot Games or i3D.net and check for overlap. Direct paths to gaming networks start here.

Hurricane Electric BGP Toolkit (bgp.he.net): See the actual routing between your ISP and a gaming network. Count the hops. Fewer is better.

mtr / WinMTR: Continuous traceroute showing latency, jitter, and packet loss per hop. Run it against a game server during peak hours to see exactly where problems occur.

Waveform Bufferbloat Test (waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat): Measures latency under load. Score below a B and your router is likely the bottleneck.

Cloudflare Speed Test (speed.cloudflare.com): Goes beyond speed. Shows latency, jitter, and works over both IPv4 and IPv6.

In game diagnostics: Fortnite, Valorant, GeForce NOW, Xbox, and PlayStation all have built in network tools. They measure latency to the actual game server. That is the number that matters most.

The Gamer’s Checklist

If you have the luxury of choosing your ISP, prioritise this:

1. Fiber first. If it is available, take it. Everything else is a compromise.

2. Check peering. Look your ISP up on PeeringDB. A well peered 100 Mbps connection will outperform a poorly connected 1 Gbps line for gaming.

3. Demand IPv6. A modern ISP should offer native dual stack. IPv6 paths are often cleaner and less congested.

4. Test beyond speed. Run a bufferbloat test. Use mtr during peak hours. Measure jitter and packet loss, not just download speed.

5. Fix your own gear. A cheap router on 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi will undo everything your ISP does right. Use ethernet. If you must use Wi-Fi, go 5 GHz or 6 GHz with a router that supports queue management.

6. Think about redundancy. A 5G backup or Starlink failover on a dual WAN router is not as expensive as it used to be. If ranked matches matter, your connection should not have a single point of failure.

The Bottom Line

The best network for a gamer is not the fastest. It is the most consistent. Lowest latency, least packet loss, best peering to the networks where games live, and access technology that physics actually favours.

The real edge comes from understanding what happens between your router and the game server. Now you know where to look.

Have you ever had to defend your choice of internet service provider? All you can say is: “Everyone says they’re reliable”, “My buddy recommended them.”, “They are the incumbent player”. But when pressed about frequent connectivity issues, then what? Sound familiar? This plays out in businesses across the world every day. We make one of our most critical infrastructure decisions based on hearsay, marketing promises, and gut feelings.

At GNX, we’ve learned that treating ISP selection like choosing a restaurant based on Google reviews is a recipe for disaster. Your internet connection isn’t just a utility anymore. It’s the lifeline that determines whether your video calls freeze during client presentations, whether your cloud applications respond instantly, and ultimately whether your business operates at peak efficiency or struggles with digital friction.

The Hidden Cost of Anecdotal Decisions

When businesses rely on word of mouth or flashy marketing materials, they often discover painful truths too late. The FCC’s Measuring Broadband America program has consistently found that for many ISPs, the measured speeds experienced by subscribers either nearly met or exceeded advertised service tier speeds, but internet usage has fundamentally changed since 2011. What worked for your business three years ago might not serve your current needs.

The real problem isn’t just getting less speed than advertised. It’s discovering that your ISP performs poorly during the hours that matter most to your business, or that their latency to critical cloud services makes your applications feel sluggish despite seemingly adequate bandwidth.

Building Your Evidence Base

Smart ISP selection starts with data collection. Here’s some examples how to gather the evidence you need:

Performance Monitoring Tools Modern speed testing goes beyond simple download speeds, incorporating upload speed, latency, and jitter measurements. Tools like Netflix’s speed test (Fast.com), TestMy.net’s latency testing, and specialized business monitoring platforms provide comprehensive baseline measurements. But don’t stop at a single test. Network stability monitoring tools can run continuously to detect latency spikes and packet drops that occur during peak usage periods.

Real World Performance Data The ACCC’s broadband monitoring program measures real speeds from more than 1000 homes across Australia, providing actual performance data rather than theoretical maximums. Similar programs exist globally. In the US, the FCC’s broadband performance reports offer invaluable insights into how different providers perform under real world conditions. Commercial data sources are also available. Also don’t forget that LLM like Claude and ChatGPT also have a breath of knowledge about this topic and can perform some research for you!

Beyond Maximum Bandwidth Here’s where most businesses get it wrong. They focus solely on advertised speeds without considering performance patterns. Latency under load has become increasingly important as consumers use more roundtrip latency-sensitive real-time applications such as videoconferencing. A connection that delivers 100 Mbps at 3am but drops to 20 Mbps during business hours isn’t truly a 100 Mbps connection for your purposes.

Critical Metrics That Matter

Latency to Your Destinations Don’t just test generic latency. Measure response times to the specific cloud services, data centers, and applications your business depends on. TestMy Latency uses TCP rather than ICMP, providing a more accurate picture of real-world application performance. A provider might have excellent latency to general internet destinations but poor connectivity to your critical AWS region.

Time-Based Performance Patterns ISP performance monitoring should extend to various network locations and simulate traffic exchanges at rapid intervals to ensure thorough assessment. Document how performance varies throughout your business day. An ISP that delivers consistent performance during your peak hours is worth more than one offering higher theoretical speeds with significant variability.

Packet Loss and Jitter These problems can significantly impact gaming and voice chat applications, which usually don’t resend lost information. For businesses using VoIP, video conferencing, or real-time collaboration tools, packet loss and jitter matter more than raw bandwidth.

Making Evidence-Based Choices

Armed with this data, you can make informed decisions that align with your actual needs rather than marketing promises. Consider a recent customer who was choosing between two fiber providers. Provider A offered 500 Mbps for $200 monthly, while Provider B offered 200 Mbps for $180. Based on speed alone, Provider A seemed better.

However, our analysis revealed Provider B had 40% lower latency to their primary cloud applications, maintained 95% of advertised speeds during business hours (versus 70% for Provider A), and showed zero packet loss in evening testing. For their use case involving real-time collaboration tools and cloud-based ERP systems, Provider B delivered superior actual performance despite lower theoretical speeds.

The Path Forward

Transforming ISP selection from anecdote to evidence requires time and effort upfront, but the payoff is substantial. Businesses increasingly depend on robust online operations, making ISP selection a critical decision that can make or break a company.

Start by establishing baseline measurements of your current connection, identify your critical applications and their performance requirements, and gather comparative data on available providers. Test during your actual business hours, not just when it’s convenient. Document everything.

The goal isn’t finding the fastest ISP or the cheapest one. It’s finding the provider whose actual, measured performance best supports your business operations. In a world where digital infrastructure determines competitive advantage, that evidence-based approach makes all the difference.

Your internet connection is too important for guesswork. Make the choice that data supports, not the one that sounds good in a sales presentation.

How GNX+ Transforms the Decision Process

At GNX, we’ve built our platform around this evidence-based philosophy. Our GNX+ algorithm continuously ingests performance data from hundreds and hundreds of ISPs across multiple markets, analyzing real-world metrics including latency patterns, throughput consistency, packet loss rates, and service reliability during peak business hours.

Rather than relying on marketing claims or theoretical speeds, our system processes data points from actual customer experiences, monitoring programs, and independent testing sources. The algorithm weighs these factors against your specific business requirements to recommend ISPs that deliver measurable performance for your use case.

This data-driven approach has helped our customers avoid costly mistakes and identify providers that truly excel where it matters most. Because when you’re making infrastructure decisions that impact your entire operation, evidence beats anecdotes every time.

Your internet connection is the foundation of your digital operations. Choose wisely, choose with data.

When I first launched this site, many years ago, it served as a humble lab notebook and sharing short personal stories from my working life. I shared diagrams, Junos configs , and field notes written after late night maintenance windows or proof of concepts.

Those stories took on a life of their own. They brought speaking invites, consulting work, and, most important, a worldwide group of curious friends. Then GNX happened. In a few coffee fueled years we moved from a whiteboard idea to a platform that sources connectivity in nearly every country in the world and a serious company with an amazing group of people. In between fundraising, product build cycles, and the arrival of my son Senna, long form writing became endangered. The blog slipped into hibernation. Four years have passed since the last proper post, which feels like a century in internet years.

Why press publish again

• The industry needs clarification. We swim in recycled press releases and messaging that skip the trade-offs.
• My inbox overflows with the similar questions from customers and partners. Turning answers into articles scales better than copy and paste.
• Writing forces clarity. Every decision at GNX improves after I explain it to a blank page.
• I simply miss it. Crafting an argument and seeing readers respond is unmatched.

What stays on the GNX domain

The GNX site remains the home for connectivity related blogs, updates, and detailed white papers aimed at procurement teams, network architects, and IT managers.

What lives here

Everything that needs a personal voice: CTO commentary, predictions, behind the scenes lessons, and the occasional rant.

Some ideas where the early drafts are being written:

• AI with accountability: keeping humans in the loop without slowing progress
• Transform ISP choice from anecdote to evidence
• Scoring vendors on real performance data and why that is harder than it looks
• The hidden cost of cloud front ends and what connectivity providers can do
• Lessons from early Starlink rollouts
• Running a distributed engineering team while preserving culture

Coming up next

Expect one blog every few weeks, matching our GNX build cycle rhythm. When a post is live I will craft a condensed LinkedIn note. Social platforms serve as rails, the blog remains the default gateway. Algorithms change, RSS endures. By keeping the canonical version here I ensure links never break.

Say hi!

If you meet me at Cisco Live, another conference, or a toddler swim class, say hello. Bring your toughest networking puzzle or your best trick for a toddler at a festival and we will trade notes.

Thank you for returning after the silence. The modem lights are blinking once more. Let us build a faster, more transparent internet together, one story at a time.