Mobile Broadband

[Fedor]

Hello, I am sorry if this topic has already been discussed elsewhere.

Here's my situation, I play FFXI. But because of my job, I will have to live in a hotel for a while. I am looking for ways to keep playing, and the only two viable options seem to be the hotel's own wifi or mobile broadband.

Has anyone had any experience with mobile broadband gaming? The company I'm looking into is Clearwire. They have 4g, unlimited data, no speed caps, within my budget, and I looked at their coverage map, there is actually a tower on the same block as the hotel I will be staying at, so reception should theoretically be good.

However I had a few concerns:

1) They actually have a class action suit pending against them for false advertising or some such thing. Because allegedly, although they advertise unlimited data, heavy data users (torrent, netflix, etc.) are identified and their speed is heavily capped, well below promised numbers, a practice called "throttling". According to the company, they do not target single computers, it's just that as all the signals are going through towers, heavy usage on a cluster of towers will reduce the speed for everyone there.

2) Although the speeds, even on bad days, should be theoretically enough to handle FFXI, apparently the key issue is latency, or "ping". Apparently these are quite high on mobile broadband and could result in serious lag in mmo's. I've read mixed reviews about this.

I'm really not a tech guy so technical terms and numbers mean little to me. Does anyone have any actual hands on experience, or have any other recommendations for me? Thank you.

[jmc]

Ping will always be high on any type of mobile broadband, however it doesn't really matter too much for FFXI.

If you have a smart phone (iOS or Android), id look into tethering applications for your phone. When I worked midnights in a car all night, I would tether my laptop to my iphone and play ffxi all night.

Another thing you could look into would be Sprints 4g mobile hotspot. I don't think its too expensive, and the ping is bearable to say the least.

[mootsfox]

I'm currently living out of a hotel too, I can feel your pain.

Tethering with the phone is actually quite good for what it is, and should be about the same as a 3G/3.5G modem. Dunno about 4G, but I'd imagine it'd be better.

Hotel wifi usually sucks ass during busy hours (6am-9am, 6pm-10pm) and can be decent (2-3Mbps) during the late night/morning and dead middle of the day.

From my experience, trucker hotels (Motel 6, Super 8, Days Inn, Extended stays and Red Roof Inns) tend to have the best wifi, while places that are $100-150+ a night have shit internet, or no free wifi at all. I think DoubleTree has changed that a bit, plus they have cookies :D

[Fedor]

Thanks for the advice. I don't have a smartphone unfortunately so tethering will not be an option. I know my hotel is in the process of upgrading its cable internet service from AT&T to Time Warner so that might be an improvement, otherwise I guess Clearwire is my only other option. I'm leaning towards that over Spring 4g cuz my understanding is that it's much better to be directly connected to a modem than wifi through a mobile broadband hotspot. Again I have no real experience with this so I don't know but yeah.

[The Stig]

I played and kited Kirin absolutely fine back in 2006/2007 where my max speed in the area was 2.5G (a little faster than dial up) using mobile broadband; unfortunately there was minimal 3G in the area, so it was more reliable to force the device to use 2.5g rather than it dropping every 5 min trying to connect via 3G. Occasionally I lagged out but not as bad as WoW which seems more connection dependant. It's definitely not unplayable on FFXI and I highly recommend it. Currently I am playing WoW on a dongle and it is at most unreliable due to the data exchange between client and server.

Now that options are better 4 years on, I would recommend you getting a Pay As you Go option if available, and see how it goes. 1gb back in 2006 was plenty to last me, I occasionally end up with 300mb by the end of the month (which I burn away on some download I might've been putting off).

If you low man a lot in FFXI I would recommend not doing so. As you'll be unreliable at best. Or at least maybe be the DD in the group rather than tank or healer. The lag is noticable but becomes natural after you adjust to it. Like a mobile phone, you'll experience lag spikes more frequently than not, but I would say that this wasn't that bad on FFXI than it is on WoW.

Currently I also experience lag spikes during peak times using the dongle which has a negative impact on WoW. I've not tried FFXI with this particular device (2011) to see the performance jump or difference, but I would lean positively towards it for FFXI. Wasn't there a quote somewhere that the game was optimized for dial up?

If you can or know someone with a stick, borrow it. Even for 1 hour. You'll suck up 20mb at most.

Despite the lag, even if you can't do anything "important", you should be fine to farm or level up a sub or solo or craft and stuff. I will argue positively for it, as it beats doing nothing else until a perma-solution comes in.

[Fedor]

One of my co workers has moved into the hotel where I will be staying. He does not play FFXI or WoW, he does however play StarCraft 2. He said he does experience a little lag from time to time but that the hotel's wifi handles the game fine. How does StarCraft 2 internet demands compare to FFXI?

[stewie]

FFXI is capped at 56k iirc so you should have no lag at all.

[Reality]

FFXI is indeed capped at about 3.6-4KB/s, I watched my data rate with this software I used to have installed, though I can't remember what it was called atm. But while I was playing the Send/Receive never went above 4KB/s, and even though the game's actual data rate is low, you'll notice a difference using mobile (wireless) broadband versus a hardline or wifi due to higher pings/response time

I have played FFXI tethered to my iPhone and there's a noticable difference going from cable modem to a 4mb 3G connection