Halo 2 and broadband traffic

Wed Dec 8 16:09:08 UTC 2004

Heya,

> Has anyone actually noticed any increases in residential
> broadband traffic due to Halo 2?
> 
> http://news.com.com/Does%20the%20Halo%202%20effect%20threaten%20broadband/2100-1034_3-5481727.html

Here's a really useless datapoint for you :)

We have about 12,000 students in our dorms.  Because we force students to
register their computers via the Web and the XBox/PS2's don't appear to have
web browsers, we have somewhat of a handle on who many are in use on campus.
We've generally average about four or five new XBox/PS2's per month over
the past year but we registered 12 in November (all were on or after 11/9).
We're also tracking down another five to ten hosts that we believe are also 
XBox/PS2s.  There were three more registered so far in December.  Obviously, 
this doesn't include any gaming systems that sit behind NAT-boxes.

Overall, we typically move around 190/230bbps inbound/outbound from our campus
and we've seen no real noticable change in our bandwidth.  We do have a few 
peer-to-peer limiters in the network, so its also possible that the gaming 
systems are being caught in there.  

Eric :)