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Halo 2 Effect Threatens Broadband

Posted by Zonk on from the that's-a-lot-of-fragging dept.

darkstar949 writes "There is an article on CNET News.com that reports the so called 'Halo 2' effect is threatening broadband users. Because of this some ISPs are being pressured for more reliability and low latency. Perhaps this marks a new trend for the internet as online gaming becomes more popular." From the article: "Sandvine's latest statistics showed that Xbox Live traffic quadrupled when "Halo 2" was launched on Nov. 9, and it has stayed at that level since. Sandvine claims that this will put added pressure on ISPs to improve the quality of their broadband offerings, as users will demand reliability and low latency."

2 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Re:shades of power play? by FLAGGR · · Score: 2, Informative

    Halo 2 has both usage and its bandwidth intensity working for it. Which takes more bandwidth, a game based off the Quake 2 engine, which worked well on 56k, or a game like Halo 2, with complicated phyiscs, bigger and more open levels etc etc? Obviously Halo 2 does. That's why its more pressure to ISP's or whatever.

  2. Re:It's funny how things change... by DaveJay · · Score: 2, Informative

    Gee whiz. My ISP (dslextreme) runs their own game servers for customers to use if they want really low latency -- and they provide explicit setup instructions for XBox Live and PS2 online gaming.

    I guess I should consider myself a lucky guy. :)