Internet provider with good latency to Europe?

Question

Hi,

I am soon starting my life in Tokyo and I am thinking about what internet provider to go with. I have a hard time picking since my Japanese still has some ways to go so I can only see what the ones with English support have to offer.

My hobby is gaming, so I care a lot about my ping. I know I won't have anything bellow 200, but that is still better than some 300 or above because the provider chose to go through the states instead of Asia or something.

Incidentally, a good VPN recommendation for Japan-Europe works too, since I will most probably end up getting one of those also, especially if the company dormitory will already have a contract with a provider and I won't have a say. (considering Nord VPN for now)

Forgot to mention, but since the main focus is gaming, I am mostly interested in Tokyo-Frankfurt(or at least Germany in general). For some reason all my games have the Europe server there.

I am not an expert at those things so sorry if I will sound dumb at times.

tl;dr: I just want low ping for my Europe accounts. Be it with a provider or with a VPN that reroutes the providers mistakes.

Thanks!

zilli · Answer

honestly the dorm thing is gonna be the biggest factor here, most share houses and company dorms in tokyo use flets hikari collabo which is basically the cheapest bulk deal and it routes everything through the US west coast. i lived in a leopalace for a year and my league ping to frankfurt was 280-300 no matter what i tried.

if you can get your own line, go with nuro. they have direct peering with equinix in frankfurt and you can get around 220-230ms which is about as good as it gets from tokyo. au hikari is second best but their routing can be weird depending on your ward, i had a friend in shibuya who got routed through london for some reason.

for vpn i'd skip nord tbh, mudfish is better for gaming but even better is exitlag. they have specific tokyo-frankfurt routing that actually cuts off like 15-20ms compared to regular vpns. costs like 5 bucks a month and you can try it free for 3 days. just make sure you set it to game mode only or your regular browsing will be slower.

hans · Answer

honestly for gaming to europe, your best bet is probably Nuro Hikari if you can get it in your building. it uses a direct line to the major undersea cables so you skip a lot of the congestion that other fiber providers have. they have english support too, which helps.

for vpn, skip nord for this use case - their routing to europe from japan is pretty hit or miss. i'd try mudfish instead, it's cheap and lets you pick exactly which route your traffic takes. you can manually select the tokyo-frankfurt path and avoid the us entirely.

one thing nobody mentions is that your building's wiring matters more than the provider sometimes. if you're in a newer apartment in minato or shinjuku you'll prob get better ping than an older place in shitamachi even with the same plan. just something to check when you sign the lease.

elenanickel · Answer

honestly for gaming to europe in tokyo you want Nuro Hikari if you can get it in your building. they use a direct fiber line and dont route through the US like some others do. ping to frankfurt is usually around 220-240 which is about as good as youre gonna get from here

for VPN skip Nord, its kinda meh for gaming. try WireGuard with a VPS in Frankfurt instead, you can set it up yourself for like 5 bucks a month and itll be way faster than any commercial VPN. just grab a Hetzner or Netcup server

if youre stuck in a dorm with pre-contracted internet you might be out of luck. some of those share connections with like 50 people and ping goes to shit. ask the dorm manager if they have fiber or if its just ADSL, ADSL in tokyo is genuinely painful

barbireischl · Answer

if you're in a dorm and stuck with whoever they use, you can still improve things a bit. get a router that supports qos and set your gaming traffic as priority - it won't fix bad routing but it stops someone else streaming 4k from spiking your ping

for vpn i'd skip nord tbh. try wtfast or mudfish, they let you pick the exact cable path. tokyo to frankfurt on the apg cable usually sits around 180-190ms for me. mudfish is pay per traffic so costs basically nothing for gaming

also check if your building has fiber to the room or just vdsl. i lived in a place in nakano that advertised "fiber" but it was actually vdsl to a closet and the ping was awful. real fiber direct to your unit makes a bigger difference than the provider name on the contract

lisethomsen · Answer

ngl for gaming in tokyo with europe servers, you're kinda stuck with the physical distance but you can still get decent results. au hikari or nuro are probably your best bets for fiber, they tend to route through asia to europe rather than the us which helps a bit. i've heard people say softbank air is okay but for gaming you really want wired, not that mobile hotspot stuff.

for vpn, nord is fine but mudfish is super popular with gamers here since it's pay-per-traffic and optimized for routing weird paths. you can set it to specifically go tokyo-frankfurt and it's cheap if you're only using it for gaming. also check if your dorm has a contract with a provider that blocks certain routes, some of the building-wide deals are awful for international traffic.

one thing nobody mentions - if you're in a big apartment building, check if they have a specific fiber provider already wired in like flets hikari. sometimes you can't switch and you're stuck with whatever that building uses, which might have worse routing than if you could pick your own.

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