Just not a good 'online' night for me ~ Chalgyr's Game Room

Just not a good 'online' night for me

April 06, 2011 4 comments

So, the Playstation network keeps dropping me on my failed ps3 attempts. Which is also keeping me from grabbing my portable ID as I mentioned earlier.

Dragon Age Legends is down on FB currently.

Most annoying though was the complaint from our cable company about us being over our bandwidth limit (which I'm not silly enough to think wasn't there, despite being on their 'unlimited internet' package).

We use a ton of bandwidth - always have and in some ways, I'm surprised it hasn't happened before. Take the last week for example: I downloaded a bunch of games off of Steam (they had a 13 game package for like $35), and I got the Mass Effect 2 download. Those 2 sets probably chewed up 15-20 gigs right there. Add to it the # of internet devices in our house always running (PS3, Wii, 360, several computers, DS's, iPad) - and of course the first thing that probably comes to mind is: Dude, you own too much crud.

And you'd be right.

But, it did get me thinking. As more and more companies are pushing downloadable content (Xbox Live, Wii download, PSN games, Steam) were you acquire whole games, or services like online radio or youtube or playlist.com where people are constantly streaming data, or netflix (we use it in 2 rooms at any given time) - it's interesting to note the concerns internet service providers face: they want to restrict use more and more. Look at the various dataplans a lot of companies have now for iphones/pads/andriods, etc - now there are more limits in place than there used to be.

I guess what I find interesting about all of that, is there's more of a push for digital downloads than ever. And that trend's not going to go away. My downloading was completely legit, I'm not sitting on a horde of ill-begotten movies here or anything, but Broadstripe sent the message saying our internet speed would be throttled down (they didn't say for how long) and that a 2nd offense equals discontinuation of our service. I know why they have those safeguards in place, but it's a slightly irksome experience from my side of it. On the one hand you have companies pushing as much digital content as possible, and on the other you have providers who are trying to protect the use of their bandwidth from abuse as well.

As games get larger and demands grow while gaming and streaming movies become even more popular, it'll be interesting to see what happens with ISPs going forward. I can't imagine I'm the only person who runs into this - but it seems like a conflict of interest between ISPs and distributors of content that promises to get worse before it gets better.

coffeewithgames06 April, 2011 23:08
Not sure if you know, but Sony has been under heavy assault from a hacker group since earlier this week...they brought down Sony.com, and the PSN a few days ago...so I wouldn't doubt it's the same issue you're having now.
ReplyDelete
Replies
Chalgyr06 April, 2011 23:16
Yeah, I haven't seen an 'official' post yet, but I've been reading some forums speculating that was the issue. I'm pretty sure that's what's causing it - there was even a post tonight on... gamespot maybe? Saying that the hackers were going to lay off now. I suspect that's the issue, but it is mildly annoying. :P Though, the getting 'in trouble' by the cable company a bit more annoying imo.
ReplyDelete
Replies
My Little Gamer06 April, 2011 23:53
it has something to do with the guy in germany who got in trouble with sony because he hacked the ps3 or something.. someone named "Anonymous" is doing the attacks on sony as retaliation. at least thats what a friend told me.. i haveny really looked it up yet.. its kinda lame. people like us, who have nothing to do with it, are suffering because of it.

you should be able to check somewhere what your current usage is at anytime.. that way you can see how much you have left around the end of the month.. we have to because of all the netflix streaming.. we have come within 3 or 4gb of our limit quite a few times and had to stop streaming all together.. pretty lame
ReplyDelete
Replies
Chalgyr07 April, 2011 00:31
@myLittleGamer - yeah, the whole Holtz scenario - I read about what had happened to lead up to it, how he and a few others jailbroke the ps3, now sony's suing and now these hackers are trying to 'make a statement'. But like you said, kinda crappy for the rest of us. Ah well, it'll likely be resolved out in a day or so, but what a pain in the meantime.

And yeah, I need to figure out what the best way to track our bandwidth is going forward. This company we use, Broadstripe, sort of drives me nuts. They don't have email support, and they only have 1 internet support agent available on the phones at any given time. When you call, it's usually 45-90 minutes to get the guy on the phone, so I just hate trying to contact them. :P

I'm pretty sure Netflix is what has been doing us in too. We got pretty hooked on it - my wife in particular- when she broke her tailbone last year sledding w/ the kids and wound up bedridden for a good length of time. It does suck though - and I think the problem's going to get worse and worse for consumers who are big into gaming and movies who have increased bandwidth needs, while ISPs are trying to shrink costs however they can.
ReplyDelete
Replies