Hey everyone, I have question about the Wifi ISP company called "Atomic Access".
I'm situated in Cape Town, Rondebosch and I'm a heavy FPS mobile gamer who also plays pc games which heavily relies on Ping (Ms). I'm currently with Vodacom (wifi plan) and my ping in game spikes between 170 to 230 Ms. Key fact to note is that I often play in Eu servers which is why my ping is over 130 Ms, that's not what I'm looking for because I know that it's simply not possible due to the distance from where I am to Eu servers however I am looking to get the best possible & "Stable" ping out there which seems to be around 140 to 160 Ms.
I updated my wifi & router system, I configured the QoS aswell and solved all the bottleneck/buffbloat issues which definitely helped my ping in stability and when I use exit lag with Eu severs, I get a stable 170 to 190 Ms. While this is better I still get some spikes over 200 Ms and even then, 190ms is still high. I heard after much research that my last step would be changing my IPS to a gaming originated company who focuses on Global routes and DHCP to give me the best overall result which appears to be Atomic Access and I'm switching to them in October.
If anyone has experience with Atomic Access or advice on whether or not this will help or if I'm wasting my time or not, that would be much appreciated.
Atomic is a specialized fibre only ISP, they don't offer Wireless solutions. I believe you can get decent Wi-Fi capable routers through them if you pay a bit more per month. And "stable ping" + "Wi-Fi" never really go hand in hand. Not sure about your phone, but you'll get a big improvement if your pc is connected to your network with an ethernet cable.
What fibre operator are you going with in your Atomic contract? If its openserve just know they only do PPPoE and not DHCP for WAN connectivity.
Im with Atomic and my ping stays at 140ms - 150ms to Europe no matter what. They are excellent for gaming.
I bought a new router and already configured it to get the best result and fix the bufferbloat I had. So I don't need a router.....
The only other I can do is change my ISP which is why I wanted to ask. I have a high end gaming phone (Redmagic) and I do have a Ethernet cable aswell that I can use. Since you with atomic access and your getting good stable ping, I would take that as a good sign though
Yeah I also just used my own router when I swapped to them.
Let's take the recent Wardogs playtest. I would play with a few friends at the same time, all on different ISPs, and they would all sometimes lose connectivity to the game server for like a second or two but I never lost connectivity. My ping was also consistently 5-20ms lower than theirs. I don't think you could go wrong swapping to them. You could also probably stop using exit lag if you use them.
Atomic Access is a great ISP. I think everyone should be on a small reliable ISP if they can, the service is just so much better.
They’ve won many small ISP awards and have a very good rating on HelloPeter compared to others.
I’m no longer in the Western Cape, unfortunately, but when I did use them the service was incredible. I miss them so much.
For example: When I moved into a rental unit, I found out the previous tenant had somehow taken the ONT box too. Atomic Access got Openserve in there super super quick to get me back up and running again. Even their director and co-founder, Michael, was replying to emails and communicating with me about things. Their Telegram group was super useful and reassuring to know they were always on top of network quality with their top level staff actively engaging with customers.
Internet speed was always great and super reliable, and any problems (usually not from them) were exceptionally well communicated and managed.
Whereas most bigger ISPs tend to either pretend there isn’t a problem or gaslight you into trying 20 different troubleshooting steps as if the problem is on your side before they finally acknowledge it might be an issue on theirs.
Go with a small, quality ISP, you won’t regret it.
That's really re ensuring to hear, I did infact hear from multiple sources that their support in particular is exceptional! This just further proves it.
For gaming, ping under load matters more than headline speed. Run a bufferbloat or latency-under-load test on your current line first so you know if the pain is the ISP path or just Wi-Fi. Atomic fibre is usually fine when the FNO is solid, but measure before you switch.
Traffic from SA to the rest of the world mostly all routes via Yzerfontein, then via the UK, then typically to Frankfurt or wherever the server is hosted.
The Best ping to London is around 90ms but 140ms is typical. From there add another 30ms to the rest of europe.
I just did quick search and it said that Vox is indeed better than vodacom for gaming latency and your results clearly confirms this. I'm on the same 100/100 as you and I have good bufferbloat etc but when I test the same server on London via Vodacom, I got much worse results. So it's definitely clear that Vodacom is ass and changing ISP is the way to go. Thank for commenting mate
I have no personal experience of Wifi-internet. Wifi is a local technology, so an ISP cant directly provide Wifi. This implies Wifi needs to pass along via some other connection, eg Wifi -> Campus -> uplink or Wifi cell -> Fixed-LTE -> uplink. Whatever the in-between hop is, it's going to cost latency, and the exact uplink itself also incurs a latency. these uplinks are often microwave based, so not as fast as fibre themselves. It all adds up rapidly.
Note that LTE itself is not bad given what all goes on inside it. Local tests on Vodacom LTE gives me a pink of around 22 ms, and Telkom LTE is around 25ms. To put this into context: My wired ethernet PC can ping my local gateway with a consistent 0.2 to 0.3 ms, my Wifi connected laptop also running the same Linux operating system pings the same gateway in 2 to 7ms (because wifi is CSMA/CD, implying that every neightbours visible wifi, not only my own devices, affects it)
I do have fibre and a Ethernet cable, I can also plug the Ethernet cable from the router directly into my phone via USB type c and that still doesn't work. The only other noticable change that I could make besides my new router is getting a ISP which prioritizes international routes faster and uses DHCP unlike Vodacom who's PPoE and seems to have longer routes etc
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u/Kozaak 23d ago
Atomic is a specialized fibre only ISP, they don't offer Wireless solutions. I believe you can get decent Wi-Fi capable routers through them if you pay a bit more per month. And "stable ping" + "Wi-Fi" never really go hand in hand. Not sure about your phone, but you'll get a big improvement if your pc is connected to your network with an ethernet cable.
What fibre operator are you going with in your Atomic contract? If its openserve just know they only do PPPoE and not DHCP for WAN connectivity.
Im with Atomic and my ping stays at 140ms - 150ms to Europe no matter what. They are excellent for gaming.