1UP: Bandwidth Caps Will Change Online Gaming - Narrowband

1UP writes: "One day, games will depart the physical world, existing only as data on a storage device, downloaded like everything else. It's inevitable. And with the ever-growing popularity of digital distribution services like Valve's Steam, Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade, and Sony's PlayStation Network, that future seems to be near. Freed from the constraints of shelf space and the enormous cost of physical distribution, game developers will have a chance to explore ideas that never could've turned a profit at $60 on a Best Buy shelf. We've already seen it happen with last year's (partially) Steam-distributed hit Portal and the currently in-vogue Xbox Live Arcade puzzler Braid.

Recently, however, that future's hit a speed bump. Broadband Internet providers, the folks you pay every month for unfettered access to the online world, are reconsidering the way they do business. In order to save us all from the movie-pirating bandwidth hogs -- who, broadband-service providers contend, are gumming up everyone else's good time -- many companies are testing or implementing limits on their broadband services. Time Warner's currently experimenting with 5-to-40GB caps in Beaumont, TX, charging customers a buck for every gig they download over the limit. Canadian cable operator Rogers has already implemented a system with a hierarchy of caps -- the lowest of which dead-ends at 2GB -- that charges customers between $1.25 and $5 per GB for excess downloads. Comcast is looking into a more generous, yet precedent-setting, 250GB cap. All signs point toward a shift away from the heyday of all-you-can-download to an Internet that charges by the YouTube video."

[Ozzyb]

This story needs to get approved, so we can talk about how much BULL this is. If this happens wave "bye-bye" to online gaming for the most part.

[sa_nick]

It wont ruin online gaming at all, just digital distribution.

This "pay by the GB" system is all that we have in Australia and we dont have any problems playing online games.

My friend signed up with Telstra (Aussie phone company with a huhg monopoly) and in 1 month downloaded 9GB, they tried charging him $1700 for it because he was on a 200MB/month plan.

I pay $70 a month for 40GB of downloads, and that's pretty reasonable down here.

[JoySticksFTW]

And THIS is yet another reason why physical media isn't going bye-bye just yet.

Digital Distribution is the future?

Good luck downloading a Hi-def uncompressed version of your favorite movie, along with the newest next-gen games, and some music. And oh yeah, actually playing online games like CoD, Warhawk, Halo, or KZ - let alone ultra timesinks like LOTRo, WoW, FFXI, and Age of Conan.

You do that, and most likely you're gonna get hit with a FAT the over-limit bill

[Hububla]

I get alot of my PC games off of steam now.. and they are only getting bigger!! i mean i downloaded medieval total war over a year and a half ago and it was 11 gigs!! and empire total war comes out in February its prolly gunna be at least 15-20 gigs... man...

[rroded]

yep tho this is every internet providers wet dream what a cash cow.

[kwicksandz]

In Australia we already have bandwith caps. you basically download your stuff during your plans offpeak allowance or from your ISP so it doesnt count toward your cap. gamers dont go over caps, torrents do.

[Reibooi]

Yeah this is definitely worth a read and something to think about and perhaps fear from the future. If alot of internet company's implement caps then we can say good bye to the average use of the internet as we now know it.

[pixelsword]

...and I will get rid of cable for good.

[silvacrest]

if all broadband providers did this there would be at least one that would see the potential in providing unlimited downloads

that would be the only one i would go for tbh even if it was more expensive. i have had internet with caps before so....never again

[ice_prophecy]

Welcome to Australia's Internet. Lots of Caps.

[CrippleH]

This is why DD is not going to be mainstream for years.

And ISP rather have the government then rather themselves to install fiber optic networking. Want to leech off the government pretty much.

[UltimateIdiot911]

In countries like Japan and China. The government does take action to get fiber optics installed. Japan paid ISP to install fiber optic and China well, you need to or else...?

It's because of capitalism that these ISP decides to screw us over in the good old US of A. So far, Verizon is the only one without bandwidth capping plan. Just a matter of time.

[silvacrest]

in England, BT (the main telephone/broadband company here) has decided to roll out fiber optics to most of england using there own money which will probably take a couple of years and may cost more then copper wire broadband but it will be worth in my eyes

[Cyrus365]

Lots of place now have internet caps.

[BrotherNick]

Heh, I'm waiting so I can get verizon fios.

[Sano64]

I'm sorry but this is just wrong! Broadband in the USA is slow to begin with and now they wanna pull this crap!

[10YearFlop]

The Ps3 has set it free and revolutionized Online Gaming through the unified and innovative nature of the Network

[Bolts]

In order to cap bandwidth you must reduce price. The first ISP to cap downloads without reducing their monthly will be destroyed in the highly competitive market.

[UltimateIdiot911]

The problem with this is Comcast monopolize in certain areas of USA. Same goes for some other companies. Even if the people there wants to switch, they have no other ISP. Hell, parts of USA still run on dial up.

[ChrisGTR1]

i think its just poor game designers fault. dosent anyone remember back in 56k days? we could play games with 32 people on pc with no lag at all, everyone on 56k. now a days we get lag even on a 16 player game with everyone on broadband wtf.

[Final_Rpg]

I don't want to own digital games. I want my games to be tangible, something I can hold in my own two hands. If they take this away from me then I'll refuse to buy games.

[ASSASSYN 36o]

Where the heck have you been. It's already happening.

[thewho]

Welcome to Australia. Your internet plans are currently infinitely better than the best ones we can get here.

[badz149]

living in Japan is like living in heaven for internet heavy-user like me! I was there for 4 years and was using fiber optic connection in my final year and it was super amazing! downloading a mp3 in a couple of seconds and anime series just in a couple of minutes! now I'm stuck with an 1Mbps connection in my homeland but luckily with no caps!

[digger18]

We in the UK have always had Caps, the average is 30gig here.

When I see people saying it will effect online gaming it makes me laugh. One of my sons plays WOW for a min of 4 hours a day and another plays on both PSN and Live for around the same time. It doesn't effect online gaming, but it does effect movie and music downloads.

This is why I think DD for movies will never work.

[silvacrest]

I live in the UK to and i dont have any download caps at all
with o2 i get unlimited downloads for £10 a month and i know many other providers in the UK who do unlimited downloads as well. you might wanna consider changing your ISP to get the most outta your money...

[digger18]

silvacrest, I have tried a few of the no cap ISP's, but found them way slower than the one I have. Yes most of them say they are giving you 8mbs connection, but found the most I could get from them is around 2-4 mbs, as the servers they run are over run with people.
So its a toss up between having a full 8mbs connection with a cap or no cap but getting lots of lag or slower downloads.

[rbanke]

Things like this come and go. Years ago, most ISP's had data limits or time limits for dialup, competition between ISP's eventually got rid of those limits. If we get to a point where broadband faces the same issues, some of the companies will start advertising 'hey we have unlimited downloading' and the cycle begins again. In addition to this speeds are ramping up fairly quickly (not as quick as they should mind you) which soon enough will make the limits less needed from the broadband provider standpoint.

[UltimateIdiot911]

But the problem is a good part of USA don't have broadband and many of the area who do have broadband only have one choice of ISP. Not everyone is lucky in the USA. So far, Verizon is hope to go against these obscure ideas of bandwidth cap.

[ASSASSYN 36o]

This should not affect gamers whom use comcast. Noone is playing any game demanding 250 GB online.

[kevnb]

but i feel they will have to re-evaluate things, soon they will realize this is backwards thinking. People are going to start downloading alot more pretty soon.

[TheExodus]

Metering the Internet AGAIN may not be such a bad idea. In the beginning there were the likes of AOL, CompuServe & Prodigy who all charged by the minute, but you could actually hold a reasoned discussion in chat rooms & on discussion boards, you could click hyperlinks without fear of being besieged by all manner of "obscene filth", & "You've Got Mail" actually meant that YOU HAD MAIL!

It wasn't long after the Internet became "all you can eat" that the dreks of society flocked to it like a herd of 1/2 ton beasts to a buffet, defacing a medium with such inspiring potential into another public restroom stall.

Meter the Internet? Yes please, but could we start with a $1 service charge for every e-mail sent?

[Wii60Fan]

This will cut down on some of the haters who upload videos on you tuebe all the time and make thousands upon thousands of fake accounts.

[jerethdagryphon]

unless your on a 'primium' service

most unlimited packages in england have a fair use of 40-100 gig

and anything under that does i have a 40gb limit a month

it would serioouly hindle bluray disribution

but its not so bad for gaming and light surfing

[Wii60Fan]

The average user doesn't even come close to being excessive... they are saying that it would take 5500 music downloads, 8000 high def trailers and 40 thousand emails to go over the limit per month.

[aznguyen316]

I used to be on a cable ISP for 3 years that only allowed 12GB/month on their "silver" package whicha was 7Mbps down. The "gold" was 40GB/month at 15Mbps. I HATED the bandwidth limit, and had to purchase an extra 10GB/month for another $10. That was the ONLY broadband service available to me and in the area so they had a monopoly on it. When I moved down here to Tampa, FL this month, I got Verizon DSL, although it's half the speed at 3Mbps, I get unlimited bandwidth which is great. I am free to download PSN demos, games (most recently the 2.3GB R&C) without worry about overages. It's completely worth the slower speeds. And with FiOS coming to my area in a few months, I can get cable speeds w/o bandwidth issues. This IS a very a big issue for DD and will be a big factor in whether I want to d/l a game or purchase in store if bandwidth has to be an issue..

[ChickeyCantor]

WTF is it with these caps?
I'm glad we don't have "limits" here in the Netherlands, It's sad that even still Internet is this expensive especially if there are caps on it.

The guy who invented the Internet wanted it to be free...look what happened greedy S.O.Bs!

[SaiyanFury]

It's not the internet that's expensive, Sidar. It's the Western corporate ISPs that make things expensive. Bandwidth is cheap. In this modern day of IT networking, it's never been more cheap. But since western corporations are hell-bent on making profit any way possible, they have no qualms about gouging the end-user for ridiculous fees. Just look at the cost of internet packages over here. A 10-15 mbps connection frequently costs 50 dollars or more where over in Europe and Japan it's a fraction of that cost.

[ChickeyCantor]

I think it's "more" expensive if they put CAPS on your connection.
Putting a limit on your connection only makes the price more F up.
I mean Internet is important in this time...they could do so much better.

I pay 23 euro for 20mb-connection no Caps.

[SaiyanFury]

I'm with you, Sidar. I agree that capping bandwidth makes the internet expensive. I wish I had your connection, but all I can hope for is 30 dollar per month, 1.5mbps. And that's the absolute BEST available to me and my wife here.

[SaiyanFury]

I'm not surprised that western ISPs are capping bandwidth and making you pay for more. As far as Canadian ISPs go, Rogers is notorious for being one of the worst. I had Shaw back in Manitoba and it was never capped, and I frequently downloaded over 75GB per month as was allowed by my internet package. I was free to download up to 100GB per month and it was all good.

[KeiZka]

No caps at all here in Finland. Loving my country. Then again, 33€ for 10mb connection, hmm...

[DeadlyFire]

Move away from these service providers and get something that doesn't charge by the GB. If they have no customers then they will put the picture together that it is a bad idea. Its not like they don't have enough Bandwidth to go around either. They are all constantly expanding and have lots of bandwidth.