Plusnet poor gaming ISP?

[#1]

I have been a staunch plusnet supporter and customer for a little over half a decade but I must admit I am considering moving.
I have no problem with my day to day PC connection but my X-Box gaming is becoming a disaster.
Although I understand that gaming is meant to be at line speed / unrestricted and that I have a full on 8mb connection (living less than half a mile from my exchange) when playing COD Black Ops or MOH I have problems and in Cod I often get told I have a crappy connection complete with graphic of internet plug being disconnected!
I have mentioned this before, there was talk of making sure that the plusnet traffic management system that might not recognise certain games until trained would be updated, but surely to god an ISP with over a quarter of a million customers can afford to pay £40 on day one (if not obtain it before), train its systems and not piss off its customers with a crappy gaming experience? Plusnet, you are providing a poor gaming experience on the two biggest games 2010, why?

[#2]

My experience with PN gaming has been very good.
I use a PS3 and have no issues and full bars and host with no issues too,
What router do you use?

[#3]

Netgear DG834N And no my connection to the router is not wired but is absolutelly solid being less than 10 meters away. This issue is NOTHING to do with my connection to the router.

[#4]

Did I mention your connection to the router?
[me=adiewoo]gracefully withdraws. [/me]

[#5]

True you didn't but I get so used to folks asking the are you an idiot questions I was trying to short circuit some of them

[#6]

I've just had a look and you're on the default profile for your account type, and Dave has confirmed that we have sigs for both Call of Duty and XBL in the traffic management system config, so it should all be working for you 
If it's not the connection to the router then other than the obvious wired connection/DMZ checks I think we're down to looking at a wireshark capture I'm afraid. If you get one of them I'll pass it on for you and let you know what we find.

[#7]

Last time I had trouble my profile was temporarily upgraded for about 3 weeks and the problems disappeared instantly… Once it returned to normal the problems started reappearing. I really don’t think it is the wireless connection but I am can try a wireshark capture if you really think it will help, are there instructions anywhere of how to setup to work with the Xbox, assuming it is the Xbox data you are interested in?

[#8]

Hope this helps ... .. .
1. Get the Xbox MAC address ==> http://www.technipages.com/xbox-360-find-mac-address.html
2. Wireshark as follows ... .. .
1) Download and install Wireshark
2) Find your Xbox 360's MAC address. This looks like "00:12:5A:4B5:96" (my Xbox's MAC address). This is not printed on the Xbox; you'll have to get it by some other means. I'm sure there are guides on the internet for that.
3) If you have 2 NICs (or 1 wireless and 1 wired NIC), set up internet connection sharing on your computer and connect your Xbox 360's ethernet port to your 2nd NIC (or your wired NIC if you only have one but also have wireless -- the port you connect your Xbox 360 to should be the one the connection is shared TO). Alternatively, put both computer and Xbox 360 on a hub. A switch might work, too. If you aren't sure your setup is working, read #5 below.
4) Start Wireshark. Go to Capture>Options. In the "Capture Filter" text box, type "ether host <YOUR XBOX MAC>", without the quotes. For instance, I put "ether host 00:12:5A:4B5:96". Check the 2nd check box down in the "Stop Capture..." group. Change the number to 10 and make sure the units are "Megabytes". Press "Start"
5) Boot up your Xbox and start playing a Live game. If you do not see anything happening in Wireshark, you've configured it incorrectly! If you see multicolored (probably mostly green) lines appearing and changing, everything is working perfectly. Play your game normally until the capture has stopped in Wireshark. The capture is stopped in Wireshark if, when you click on the "Capture" menu, the "Options" and "Start" items are NOT grayed out.
3. Check the packet priority ==> http://community.plus.net/library/faults/using-wireshark-for-data-capture/
Kinda cobbled together from a few searches and a bit of personal experience, but, it should work out.
I no longer have an Xbox so cannot test this for you, anyhow, fingers crossed.
edit: typo's, my it's dark 😛

[#9]

Many thanks for that I will give it a go over the xmas break.

[#10]

Hi Folks
I thought I would give a quick update. I am coming to the conclusion that probably 80%+ of the issues are taking place server-side and therefore not Plusnet's problem. Having had some intensive sessions over the xmas break which included joining an xbox clan I found from talking to all the other folks in my game that they were getting exactly the same problems at the same time regardless of ISP or location, which means it isn't ISP specific.
I am still getting the odd problem that others don't have but I just wanted to set the record straight that most of the problems I have been experiencing don't appear to be due to Plusnet… Which I have to say I am very pleased about!

[#11]

what time in the day do you play? I've noticed if I play at night (from about 10pm) I get thrown into games with the yanks and my ping(+anyother UK players) goes sky high compared to the yanks, obviously ruining any  game and giving the yanks an easy ride. This definately happens to me and all my friends when playing cod and, as you said, is no-ones fault

[#12]

Evenings and Weekends, it happens regardless of if the game is UK players, European or Mixed with US.

[#13]

@God, if it's the same time of day for many players and ISP's there will be a network bottleneck somewhere, you may all have to try tracert's when it occurs, then pass that on to the game host. Very occasionally they will actually try to improve their end of things, if enough of you identify a problem, your biggest friend with that is their public forum, shout loud and proud

[#14]

i understand what your saying about wireless connection from xbox to router but it does make a difference in your gameplay, ping for example is better on a wired connection, but cod for xbox is laggy most on the time because of the server being player hosted rather than dedicated so host advantage is always an issue, if your xbox is only 10 metre away try a cable, you will  notice a difference.