Who provides the bandwidth for Steam?

[BrightCandle]

Realistically the cost of bandwidth is the cost of laying the cable and the electricity to drive the data through the cable and any associated devices necessary for the protection of the network. To say that cost is marginal is an understatement. The way we are charged for internet in our houses is not how big companies pay for internet bandwidth, they do not pay anywhere near the prices we do. We get totally ripped of because they had to roll out devices all across the country to get it to us.

 

[sourceninja]

Realistically the cost of bandwidth is the cost of laying the cable and the electricity to drive the data through the cable and any associated devices necessary for the protection of the network. To say that cost is marginal is an understatement. The way we are charged for internet in our houses is not how big companies pay for internet bandwidth, they do not pay anywhere near the prices we do. We get totally ripped of because they had to roll out devices all across the country to get it to us.

Except for the phone companies didn't have to pay the cost of laying out that cable. My tax money paid for that.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

I'm talking about sales of like 8gb games for $5

The fact they are selling 8gb for $5 should be your clue that bandwidth is not that expensive.

 

[aigomorla]

they have multiple iphones with 4g raided!!!

*sarcasm*

 

[KaOTiK]

The fact they are selling 8gb for $5 should be your clue that bandwidth is not that expensive.

Even more of a clue is Rage has been on sale a few times for $5 and it is like 25 gigs.

 

[Phynaz]

http://blog.highwinds.com/blog/bid/201931/Valve-Leverages-Highwinds-CDN-for-Steam-Platform

Not sure if things have changed since then.

I was thinking about Highwinds. Nice to see you found this.

 

[themadhatterxxx]

they have multiple iphones with 4g raided!!!

*sarcasm*

Hahahahhaah :ninja:

 

[Plimogz]

This reminds me of one bite from this RPS article

"one recent Dota 2 updates[sic] was responsible for 2% of all mobile and land-based internet activity at the time it was released."

 

[PrayForDeath]

Hahahahhaah :ninja:

Holy smokes lurker

 

[desura]

The fact they are selling 8gb for $5 should be your clue that bandwidth is not that expensive.

I'm a fan of This American Life and they are always going on about how the podcast cost their station like 100k. Just for some tiny little 20mb MP3 files.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Realistically the cost of bandwidth is the cost of laying the cable and the electricity to drive the data through the cable and any associated devices necessary for the protection of the network. To say that cost is marginal is an understatement. The way we are charged for internet in our houses is not how big companies pay for internet bandwidth, they do not pay anywhere near the prices we do. We get totally ripped of because they had to roll out devices all across the country to get it to us.

The issue has more to do with the exclusive contracts that were granted by local governments to individual business entities who therein acquired a total monopoly of service to as many areas as they have been licensed to lay out cable communication infrastructure for and provide services for via local/state government contracts which allow them franchise rights.

Since governments didn't really care and/or were not skilled/knowledgeable enough to broker a deal to include a clause to allow competition to occur within these contracts (so as to allow other third parties to also lay out communication infrastructure or just be able to come in and be compete after given period of time provided they help maintain these cable lines) you ended up with behemoth companies like Comcast who basically dominate entire regions because they knew enough to grease the palms of these governments in these regions and acquire the rights to provide subscription based tv service via cable lines.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Except for the phone companies didn't have to pay the cost of laying out that cable. My tax money paid for that.

Correct me if I'm wrong but US Cable Television started out as a private subscription option in areas in the US.

 

[sourceninja]

Correct me if I'm wrong but US Cable Television started out as a private subscription option in areas in the US.

Sure, and probably subsidized with tax money to build out their networks. For example, in 2012 Frontier took $71.9 million from the FCC to expand their network.