Thread: BSNL vs Airtel for online gaming

Airtel:
negatives-
Slightly higher latencies (20-30ms more) than bsnl.
Costs are obviously higher and there is FUP.

positives-
latencies are steady; there is almost no packet loss. Routing is mostly fixed and changes only rarely. Use of congested routes is minimal and there isn't any congestion during peak hours. Outages are minimal.

BSNL:
negatives-
packet loss & congestion is a constant problem especially during peak hours [which can end up being any random time of the day].
Routing seems to change constantly. Very large latency fluctuations are commonplace; outages are very very common.
It's possible to have outages or just plain unusable net for days together.

positives-
Slightly lower latencies than airtel (20-30 and sometimes up to 50ms less).
Costs are lower. There are plans with no FUP.
Few decent Unlimited plans and night unlimited plans.
Great for downloading updates/patches/torrents/youtube etc since dl limits are less of a concern.

Generally if you want a connection where reliability and staying connected is important = airtel.
If you are ok with an unreliable connection with frequent problems; but slightly better latencies when the stars align & lower costs without FUP = bsnl

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why would reliability matter in gaming ?

If your game server ping is too high or erratic: you can get kicked or dropped. Similarly on any semi-competitive or ranked match getting dropped is obviously frustrating.
If you are a casual gamer then obviously this isn't that much of an issue. This mainly applies to people that play online RTS, fps or mmorpg's i.e. anything multiplayer.

Good one rsen. Don't know about Airtel, but wouldn't recommend BSNL for gaming.