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The Internet traffic-monitoring company said Tuesday that Microsoft's "Halo 2"--a popular first-person shooter game--has boosted traffic on Xbox Live as players rush to compete over the Net.
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.
"The explosion in X-Box Live traffic attributed to 'Halo 2' should be seen as a clarion call," Marc Morin, chief technology officer of Sandvine, said in a statement.
"ISPs need to enhance the broadband experience for these high-end users by prioritizing or reserving bandwidth for games and other kinds of latency-sensitive and feature-rich applications," Morin added.
British telecommunications giant BT, whose network supports most of the United Kingdom's ISPs, argues that there are a lot of reasons why an online-game session might suffer from network disruptions like poor latency.
"It depends where the players are based," said a BT representative. "A session where four gamers are all based in the U.K. is likely to have pretty low latency. If one is based in America, one in Australia and one in Brazil, then there's more chance of latency because of Internet lag."
ISPs see online games as an application that could tempt many people-- both PC and console users--to broadband. At present though, according to BT, online games account for only a small proportion of overall Internet traffic, so the increase caused by "Halo 2" shouldn't have massive implications for telecommunications providers.
In the long term, BT's 21st Century Network--under which it will move from today's legacy equipment to an all-IP infrastructure over the next few years--could make the United Kingdom a leader for online games.
"The 21st Century Network will hopefully mean there will be much less latency for gamers," said the BT representative.
Graeme Wearden of ZDNet UK reported from London.
See more CNET content tagged:
Sandvine, Halo 2, latency, British Telecommunications, online game
They pay for the X-box, the game, and Broadband service. I assume they pay a M$ tax each month. :)
I see a chance for ISPs to get in on this too.
I am not a game player execpt for a turn based game.
I get to play and make 15 moves then you get your moves then someone else gets a turn and the next day we all get another set of moves.
They pay for the X-box, the game, and Broadband service. I assume they pay a M$ tax each month. :)
I see a chance for ISPs to get in on this too.
I am not a game player execpt for a turn based game.
I get to play and make 15 moves then you get your moves then someone else gets a turn and the next day we all get another set of moves.
- Peer to Peer services tampered with
- by kenwilli February 16, 2007 7:13 AM PST
- Networks with asymmetrical limitations have deployed peer to peer mitigation devices in order to preserve the performance of the slower side of their asymmetric networks. P-P was perceived as a nusance service running on a user's PC and the user was unaware of it. The blocking or slowing of P-P traffic was heralded as a huge success. However, blocking P-P wholesale affects valid P-P user experiences. The trend seems to be toward more symmetrical data usage not just one-way web surfing and email downloads. Modern networks must address the delay and symmetry going forward.
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