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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."

4 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. This isn't anything new - Prioritize! by Goyuix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ISPs have had the ability to deal with this for a long time. Many home users even take advantage of an easy bandage (probably not a fix) - simply prioritize packets. As an example, ACK's get priority whereas the next packet in your 3GB Linux ISO gets bumped by a millisecond or two. Net result: Your connection is still usable and responsive, even though it is being pushed near capacity. Heck, I was behind a transparent proxy for awhile (didn't bother me, but that is another story) that would simplify routing as well. Most home users would never even know (or care about) the difference. Most are proxied at work some way or another as it is.

    ISPs can simply log their data, see where it is going and what it looks like and write some prioritization rules to give the end users some help. Yes it is more work for the ISP, but it is right in line with something they should be doing anyway.

    Now if there was a way to do proper QoS on the internet at large, that would be an interesting proposition as well...

    1. Re:This isn't anything new - Prioritize! by Have+Blue · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Packet prioritization does not work in the real world beyond the LAN because of the potential for abuse. If ISPs were known to obey packet priority settings, everyone (or at least a number of scummy people large enough to break the system) would set all their packets to maximum priority, and enjoy improved speed at everyone else's expense until ISPs switched back to FCFS.

      I believe TCP/IP has always supported packet prioritization, but it's always been ignored for this reason.

  2. It's funny how things change... by log0n · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When cable first was in development (@home was betatesting in Baltimore at least 7-8 years ago), just about anything other than straight up web browsing was a violation of the terms of service. Gaming (qworld, etc) was something you'd get suspension notices for because of how much of an impact it had then to the local 'community' network (all the pinging to servers, etc).

    Fast forward a bit and highspeed gaming is now a major selling point for ISPs.

    It's just funny to see how companies used to make huge problems out of things that later turn into total 180degree policy shifts.

  3. Ha! Right. by skadus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They might do it, but they'll offer it as a new 'premium service'. Cebridge is doing it in my suburb of Houston, and RoadRunner is advertising it on the radio in Houston proper.

    I guess it's only fair, since they have to upgrade the lines for gamers and downloaders, but it feels like extortion. 'What? You're lagging out in Warcraft? Well, if you paid 15 bucks [I'm guestimating the price] more a month you wouldn't get killed so often. You want to enjoy your game don't you?'