James Delahunty
8 Dec 2004 11:50
Halo 2 is by far one this years most anticipated games. It seems now that most gamers are getting increasingly interested in online gaming using their broadband service with their gaming consoles. It has been reported by network monitoring company Sandvine, that traffic on the Xbox live gaming network had increased fourfold on Halo 2's release date and is showing no signs of slowing down. Fears are that some networks may not be able to handle the amount of bandwidth that is now being demanded by gamers. But the surge in numbers and huge demands for bandwidth should be a wake-up call to the industry which must ensure that their networks can cope with the increases in traffic, said Sandvine's chief technology officer Marc Morin.
Since the demand for bandwidth has become very high these days, more and more service providers are implementing systems that make their networks more intelligent, and gather information on what bandwidth is being used for what purpose. With a network like this, ISP's could very easily prioritize or reserve bandwidth for online gaming through gaming consoles. However, if the hunger for bandwidth keeps rising it seems possible that more ISP's will move to a system of charging customers by the amount of bandwidth that they use.
One of the most annoying things for an online gamer is "lag". You know you are experience lag when there is a noticeable delay between the time you make an action using the controller and the time it happens on the network. Gamers tend to move onto networks with the least amount of lag.
Source:
BBC News