Gamers who enjoy playing first-person shooters like Valorant, multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBA) like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang or DOTA, and open-world, action role-playing games like Genshin Impact, are all too familiar with the struggles of having a slow internet connection.
Fuzzy video resolution, lags between actions and in-game responses, audio and video buffers, delayed voice chats, and other issues due to network quality can spell the difference between an enjoyable gaming session and a frustrating one. For e-sports tournaments, network speed could determine a country’s win or loss.
There’s a significant yet underserved market of gamers in the country, made up of mainly Gen Z’s and Millennials. According to data from Nielsen IQ, there are currently 48 million gamers in the Philippines, with 39 percent based in Metro Manila. In terms of preferred platform, 74% play games on mobile, 65% play on PC games, while 45% play on consoles.
A survey conducted by Rakuten Insight in April 2022 further shows that 80 percent of respondents in the country play online games, with almost half playing on a daily basis.
Thus, if you play online games frequently, it makes sense to invest in a broadband plan to get a better overall gaming experience.
Converge’s pure fiber power plans, called FiberX Gamechanger is the first ever fixed broadband plan in the Philippines dedicated for gamers and gaming enthusiasts, featuring high-prioritization access and ultra high-speed plans.
Converge’s FiberX GameChanger product line-up offers start at P2,500 with speeds of up to 800 Mbps.
Pro-Entry: Up to 400 Mbps – P2,500
Pro Mid: Up to 600 Mbps – P3,000
Pro High / XCLSV: Up to 800/600 Mbps – P3,500
Elite/XCLSV: Up to 800 Mbps – P5,000
However, it’s not just the Internet speed or high bandwidth that matters most for online gaming. As detailed by Seattle-based technology news site GeekWire, common problems gamers complain about are packet loss, high latency, and high jitter, which can only be addressed with fiber internet.
“Packet loss happens when pieces of data don’t arrive, which can cause performance degradation, something you absolutely do not want while gaming. Jitter typically occurs when packets don’t arrive in the same order they were sent which can cause audio and/or video to buffer or lag. Latency or delay is the amount of time it takes for packets to get from their source to their destination, something critical to seeing the things you’re doing with your controller and keys happening on-screen,” they wrote.
Too much delay can degrade performance and is something you don’t want to experience especially if you’re in the middle of a high-stakes campaign.
To meet the demands of gamers, FiberX GameChanger plans guarantee high speeds of up to 800 Mbps with game-centric features, low latency (assuring that all data arrives quickly), low jitter (all data arrives in the right order), and low packet loss (all data actually arrives).
Converge boasts of the most reliable true high-speed plans complemented by gaming network devices, powered by ASUS Republic of Gamers, the hardware of choice for PC gaming and e-sports. Each plan comes with the prioritization feature and ASUS TUF Gaming ax5400 router, while the Elite plan comes with a Rapture GT-AX 6000 router for high efficiency and triple-level game acceleration.
Still unsure of the network’s quality? Converge recently emerged as the winner of the Ookla Speedtest Award for best ISP video experience in the Philippines for the second half of 2022.
Converge topped the category with an overall 80.99 video score, reflective of the results of consumer-initiated scoring during a six-month period. The video scoring, which ranges from 0 to 100, rated users’ video experiences.
The network topped all other internet service providers in the Philippines in five key categories, namely:
• Adaptive start failure (the proportion of tests that failed to start)
• Median adaptive start time (the time to first frame of video playback)
• Median adaptive average bitrate (low bitrate means user experiences a fuzzy, low resolution video while a higher bitrate supports better viewing experience)
• Adaptive stall events (the proportion of users with at least one stall event) and
• Media adaptive stall severity (users who experience stalling event).
“Filipinos have spoken, and we have emerged as the ISP giving the superior video experience to them. This speaks for itself: our high speed, high capacity internet produces the best experience in streaming and consuming video content whether for gaming or entertainment. This is a mark of excellence in service for us,” said Converge co-founder and chief executive Dennis Anthony Uy.
The company also topped video streaming giant Netflix’s ISP Speed Index in December 2022, proving its steady No. 1 ranking in Netflix’s monthly speed index for most of 2022.
#ExperienceBetter with the leading fiber internet provider in the Philippines, Converge ICT Solutions Inc. Visit www.convergeict.com for more details.
This article first appeared on BrandedUP, a section designed to provide readers with insightful, inspiring, and educational content created by in collaboration with brands like Converge.