Traffic surges for iTunes and Xbox Live Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Traffic surges for iTunes and Xbox Live Posted by XanTium | December 5 13:27 EST

From arstechnica.com: [QUOTE] Broadband traffic for services such as iTunes and Xbox Live has surged in the last few months, according to Sandvine Incorporated. Sandvine, which develops network equipment to monitor broadband usage, says that Internet traffic for the two services has skyrocketed since the release of iTunes 7 in September and new games for use on Xbox Live in November. Sandvine also reports having seen an 80 percent increase in the number of Xbox Live users since since November 7. That week, Microsoft released six new games for the Xbox 360--one of which was the highly-anticipated Gears of War--which spiked Xbox Live traffic. This traffic pattern is similar to the spike that followed the introduction of Halo II in 2004, says Sandvine, which managed sustain Xbox Live's popularity after the spike for the first time. Sandvine CEO Dave Caputo said that "the effect Gears of War and other games are having on networks indicates to service providers that online gaming is not just a craze."live [/QUOTE] Read More: arstechnica.com

[quarky42]

I hope this sends a clear message to internet service providers that they need to provision properly to allow network gaming to continue unfettered. Perhaps they should consider evaluating the bandwidth needs when blockbuster games like Halo3 or Gears of War are about to be released.

Don't a lot of these games come with a free trial for xbox live too?

This post has been edited by quarky42: Dec 5 2006, 06:48 PM

[mlapaglia]

we're going to bring the internet down! ahhhhh

wonder what this will do to internet prices if ISP's start making more bandwith inside their servers?

[TeHsU]

Prices should not change, they've been dropping, I pay 50 a month for 15/2 soon 20/5, for the same price, prices for bandwidth isnt going to change, around here anyways (Texas)

[mcatrage]

Can you imagine the increase that is going to happen after Halo 3 is released. Gears of War is a great game but I think even more people are in love with Halo.

[47_M450N_47]

Yeah, hopefully this will send a message to ISPs so that they will increase compatibility with online gaming (for some reason some ISPs don't get along well with it.)

And I'm sure that there will be a huge spike when Halo 3 comes out!

[Landlocked]

Oh, I can confirm that in-game chatter of stoned people asking their roommates to go get Taco Bell at 2 am has increased by 80%!

[sicknasty413]

Prices should not change, they've been dropping, I pay 50 a month for 15/2 soon 20/5, for the same price, prices for bandwidth isnt going to change, around here anyways (Texas)

Holy crap...who's your ISP??

My father pays ~$50 and I get this crap:


DAMN YOU ADELPHIA!!!!

[mlapaglia]

dude that blows...

[rasstar]

I pay 29.95 for this in Brooklyn, NY. Cablevision rocks. Suppose to be 30/5

[sicknasty413]

I feel jipped (sp?)