Onlive Bandwidth Usage Report

[e MpTy]

Hey guys, I thought I might fill you in on onlive which most of you know but theres something you need know before you get into the beta testing or if you subscribe when its released, if you don't know what onlive is visit www.onlive.com

First off I have researched the top broad band internet providers here is the list of bandwitdh limits.

Internet Providers in Canada and US

USA - Comcast 250gb per month
Canada - Shaw 150gb per month

Oh if someone from Europe could post your top internet providers bandwidth limit I would be greatful.

I took it apon myself to calculate a months bandwidth usage in each country and heres the results.

Before I give the results I don't think middle class persons will be able to afford HD Onlive gaming, I think Onlive in the end will be for now, in a set area in the US for those willing to pay top doller for this service.

Lets say you have a 5mb download rate which comes out to 4mb/s, they like to putt a cherry on top of it so the service sells more.

Ok streaming games at 4mb/s times that by 60 seconds in a minute, that's about 240mb's just for 1 minute of play.

Now we times that by 60 minutes (hour)that comes out to 14,400 mb for one hour of useage (bandwidth).

On average a player can play just for number sake will say 4 hours a day, then times 14,400 by 4 hours that comes out to about 57,600 mb in 4 hours.

Ok that's one day now will times 57,600 by 7 for a full week and the total is...403,200 mb, thats only 4 hours a day 7 days a week.

Now times 403,200 by 4 (weeks) and the total is 1,612,800 mb in bandwidth usage for one month of play.

We are way past our bandwidth limit just thought I'd let you guys know before you start forking out money in the truck loads

Edited, forgot to add the final result

 

[Jubei]

Ok streaming games at 4mb/s times

Is that megabit or megabyte?

Source games use about 20-30MB (bytes) per hour.

 

[Allster]

Can you explain how exactly onlive works?
I'm looking on their site and I don't get it well.
And if your numbers are true, then... Dang.

 

[ScrappyDoo]

As Jubei points out, there's a big difference between megabyte and megabit. You need to take your number and divide by eight.

Bandwidth is measured in "bits".
Bandwidth limits are measured in "bytes".

So, for example, if someone were to want 720p resolution, OnLive's FAQ says you need 5 Mbps. So:

5 Mbps * 60 Seconds = 300 Mb/min.
300 Mb/min * 60 min = 18000 Mb/hour
18000 Mb/hour * 4 hr/day = 72000 Mb/day
72000 Mb/day * 25 day/Mon = 1,800,000 Mb/month

OMG!

But wait. Divide that by 8 (8 bits per byte) = 225,000 MB/month which equals 225 GB/month. Close to your number of 201 GB/month.

Close but still below the Comcast limit.

Note 1: If you're willing to play at less than 720p, then you need even less.

Note 2: Yes, 4 hours of game time 25 days a month.

 

[Goretex]

Now you just have to shell out 80 dollars a month for the itnernet connection, buy a subscription,10-15 a month? buy every game *cough* pirate *cough* and you are set.


Nty

 

[e MpTy]

As Jubei points out, there's a big difference between megabyte and megabit. You need to take your number and divide by eight.

Bandwidth is measured in "bits".
Bandwidth limits are measured in "bytes".

So, for example, if someone were to want 720p resolution, OnLive's FAQ says you need 5 Mbps. So:

5 Mbps * 60 Seconds = 300 Mb/min.
300 Mb/min * 60 min = 18000 Mb/hour
18000 Mb/hour * 4 hr/day = 72000 Mb/day
72000 Mb/day * 25 day/Mon = 1,800,000 Mb/month

OMG!

But wait. Divide that by 8 (8 bits per byte) = 225,000 MB/month which equals 225 GB/month. Close to your number of 201 GB/month.

Close but still below the Comcast limit.

Note 1: If you're willing to play at less than 720p, then you need even less.

Note 2: Yes, 4 hours of game time 25 days a month.

Megabit per second
A megabit per second (abbreviated as Mb/s or Mbit/s or Mbps) is a unit of data transfer rate equal to 1,000,000 bits per second. Because there are 8 bits in a byte, a transfer speed of 8 megabits per second (8 Mb/s) is equivalent to 1,000,000 bytes per second (approximately 977 Kib/s).


[edit] Usage examples
The bandwidth of consumer broadband internet services is often rated incorrectly in megabits (a unit of information) or more correctly in megabits per second; the formal abbreviation for megabit per second is Mbit/s. Note that in this context the term bandwidth is used colloquially to mean the data transfer rate.

Data streams representing compressed video are often measured in Mb/s:

2.0 Mb/s — VHS quality
8 Mb/s — DVD quality
27 Mb/s — HDTV quality
Each DTV (Digital television) channel is permitted to be broadcast at a data rate up to 19 megabits per second (19 Mb/s), or 2.375 megabytes per second. However, the broadcaster does not need to use this entire bandwidth for just one broadcast channel. Instead the broadcast can be subdivided across several video subchannels of varying quality and compression rates, including non-video datacasting services that allow one-way high-bandwidth streaming of data to computers.[1]

More specific examples found on standard Comcast digital streams (transmitted in MPEG2 format):

2-3 Mb/s — a low-definition digital channel with a very clean signal
5-6 Mb/s — a low-definition digital channel with a digitized ("dirty") analog signal (or just an analog channel)
8-12 Mb/s — a medium to high-definition digital channel with DVD quality data (equivalent to HBO-HD)
18-20 Mb/s — a high-definition digital channel at 1080i (equivalent to Discovery HD)
Another example, Network cards and cables are typically available in 10/100/1000 Mb/s. This means they can support a transfer rate of 10 or 100 or 1000 Mb/s.

Wounder why they decided to make such an arbitrary formula...
Thanks for pointing that out, all though you'd have to limit your time on on onlive if you were to play 8 hours a day that comes out to 3,600,000Mb/month then dvide by 8 comes out to 450 GB/month.

Ok lets figure the maximum number of hours you can play without going over your bandwidth limit..

5x60= 300
300x60= 18,000
18000x4.2(hours a day)= 75,600
75,600x25= 1,890,000
1,890,000/8= 236 GB/month MAX 250 GB/Month Comcast-USA

5x60= 300
300x60= 18,000
18000x2.6= 46,800
46,800x25= 1,170,000
1,170,000/8= 146 GB/month MAX 150GB/month Shaw Internet-Canada


And all this does'nt include downloading movies music and general internet surfing.

 

[The IRS]

mudkipz?

 

[OUCH]

wow this hurt my head