Irish gamers are a serious bunch who refuse to tolerate poor latency and their protests have been heard by Magnet Networks, which eliminate milliseconds of delay to help the gamers play more competitively.
Slow ping times and network congestion could ruin the game for any player who is competing via broadband with friends online.
The new Magnet Bolt service, a world first, has been developed with the feedback and testing of 120 Irish gamers who have long complained that slow ping times and poor latency are the biggest downsides to online gaming in Ireland.
“When gaming, milliseconds of delay mean either instant victory or defeat,” Magnet marketing manager Tom Larkin said.
“We talked directly with the gaming community through Boards.ie to see what could be done to improve online gaming and make them more competitive. Bolt is an all-in service that gives the ping time speeds and performance they need to win.”
Magnet Bolt subscribers will have their internet line tuned by a Magnet engineer to increase performance for gaming. Customers will also have gaming server traffic prioritised and be supplied with a high-quality Telsey gaming router as well as 12Mb broadband with 1:1 contention.
Ping times, the amount of time it takes for information to travel between game consoles, are the most important factor when competing online. A recent survey revealed Irish gamers suffer from an average ping time of 194ms, nearly twice what is acceptable to enjoy online gaming.
Magnet Bolt reduces this down to speeds as low as 16ms, the fastest ping times available in Ireland. Latency, another important factor, is slashed to one-quarter of the Irish average.
Commenting on the involvement of Boards.ie, community manager Dav Waldron said: “We’ve had companies use our site to talk directly to customers around customer-service issues, but it is really exciting for a company to step in, listen and invest time and money into designing something that members actually want.
“As more companies move into online communities like ours, collaboration with members will become commonplace. This can only benefit both the consumer and the company.”
Gamers have been quick to endorse the new service with one tester, Stel Fox, saying, “I’ve noticed a big leap in terms of faster in-game response times and it’s given me a real edge playing against others online.”
Priced at an introductory rate of €64.99 per month until the end of the October, Magnet Bolt will then cost €69.99, including VAT and line rental.
By John Kennedy
Photo: Subscribers to Magnet Bolt will have their internet line tuned by a Magnet engineer to increase gaming performance.
