# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Tech Talk >  >  Tell me if xbox live takes up broadband downloads...

## Niddiboy

Hey, just a quick question as my family have chosen to get limited broadband instead of unlimited... dont ask me why lol.

Does xbox live (i.e. the multiplayer aspect of it) take up any of the GB's of internet downloads. I know things like youtube does but im not sure about other things...

cheers

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## Adam

yes

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## Bearsy

It takes up a lot of your internet.

You really can only do one or the other at a time.

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## Marvo

Of course it does, that's logic.

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## Venomblood

Everything does.  And especially Xbox live.

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## Man of Steel

When you talk of limited broadband, you mean you are limited in bandwidth usage per month. Everything that needs an internet connection uses bandwidth, in varying amounts. AIM, Limewire, browsing websites, etc.. Streaming or downloading video uses more than most anything else, practically. Playing a multiplayer video game over Xbox Live uses a pretty hefty amount of bandwidth. 

If you are limited to a number of GBs of bandwidth per month with your internet service, then you should probably forget about Xbox Live. It's going to eat that bandwidth right up.

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## cuddleyperson

> When you talk of limited broadband, you mean you are limited in bandwidth usage per month. Everything that needs an internet connection uses bandwidth, in varying amounts. AIM, Limewire, browsing websites, etc.. Streaming or downloading video uses more than most anything else, practically. Playing a multiplayer video game over Xbox Live uses a pretty hefty amount of bandwidth. 
> 
> If you are limited to a number of GBs of bandwidth per month with your internet service, then you should probably forget about Xbox Live. It's going to eat that bandwidth right up.



yep yep yep. It's stupid though because tbh most broadband deals that offer unlimited aren't that expensive. Our Virgin Media deal with tv, broadband(10mb) and phone is pretty good although since houses don't have fibre optic you don't see anything near that, i'm surprised their allowed to advertise like that.

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## Niddiboy

ok, well i asked my dad and he said that,

1. We are only limited by the local exchange which is pretty close and that gives us about 8megs of bandwidth.

2. We are limited by downloads, i think to about 10GB.

so not limited by bandwidth, yes limited by downloads..

does that change the fact that u all believe no xbox live for me, its just credit runch is hitting hard =(

as always, cheers for your replys

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## Niddiboy

sorry, but also, if i dont download any extra content like new features or purchase new songs for rockband, but just play multiplayer, again no downloads, (also taking into consideration bandwidth is not limited) should the limitation of INTERNET DOWNLOADS ONLY affect my ability to play xbox live?

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## AirRick101

playing multi-player online in and of itself won't deplete your bandwidth very much for the average broadband connection.  the bits and pieces of data that need to be sent to communicate with your xbox what the other players are doing are surprisingly low. 

but of course, downloading demos, add-ons, etc. will very much take up bandwidth, especially if your connection is capped at a relatively low speed (mine is capped at 160kb/sec, it's the best DSL package I got in my area cuz I live somewhat up in the hills.....we are switching to cable soon, hopefully  :tongue2: )

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## Marvo

Anything that uses the internet, uses bandwidth.

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## Niddiboy

> Anything that uses the internet, uses bandwidth.



lol, i know that, my question was simply that since my bandwidth isnt going to change, its just the downloads that are being capped, like movie, music and youtube downloads. I was just asking whther or not Xbox Live would take up internet Downloads (and im not talking about bandwidth)

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## Marvo

Okay, listen, anything that involves your internet connection, *anything*, uses your "internet downloads". Your computer can't magically predict where people go in a game, it has to receive information from a server somewhere out on the internet, and anything transferred from the internet to your computer is classified as downloading.

Anything that uses the internet, uses bandwidth, and use of bandwidth equals download.

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## Man of Steel

Yes, as we are referring to it, bandwidth is not speed. Number one above, in your post, is referring to speed, not bandwidth. 8Mb/s (eight megabytes per second) is what is referred to there. What you call "internet downloads" is the amount of bandwidth you are allotted to use per month. Every packet sent from any server out in the internet to your local network, constitutes a percentage of that bandwidth. 

Depending on what the rest of your family does on the internet, and how heavy their typical traffic is (whether they mainly just check email, or if they like to watch videos on YouTube for hours at a time, etc.) you may be fine with playing a bit of multiplayer on Xbox Live with 10Gb of bandwidth per month. However, it may be a bit risky. What happens if you exceed your bandwidth allowance ("internet downloads," as you call it)? Is that all she wrote, so to speak, or do they just cut your speed by half, or what? Different ISPs have different ways of going about this.

I am no expert in the matter, and I don't know how much bandwidth Xbox Live typically uses in, say, an hour of play. You're probably going to be fine playing a couple hours a week, though. I'd do some research and see about digging up some figures on Xbox Live gameplay bandwidth usage, though.

Edit: Topic moved to Tech Talk, where it belongs and I, for some reason, thought it was.  :tongue2:

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## Niddiboy

thanks very much for everyone's help with this, i really appreciate it.

i think the ISP (Sky) charges you extra for it but im not so sure. Ill do what u said MoS and go research it abit more. My family only really use the internet for checking e-mails, im the one who does all the gaming and such =P

cheers!  ::D:

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## Photolysis

If you play online for a few hours a day in a game like COD or Halo you will use at least several hundred megs of your limit.
You also have to upload information when playing games as well. This also takes up your limit.

As others have stated, ANYTHING you do on the internet involves downloading. Streaming video. Even looking at a webpage counts; you have to download images, the code for the page, etc.





> I am no expert in the matter, and I don't know how much bandwidth Xbox Live typically uses in, say, an hour of play. You're probably going to be fine playing a couple hours a week, though. I'd do some research and see about digging up some figures on Xbox Live gameplay bandwidth usage, though.



For a typical game of Halo or COD, under most conditions it will be around 10KB/sec (5 up and 5 down). If you're hosting a game on a decent connection then this will increase by up to 17 times, depending on the amount of players in the game. If you're playing on a game that uses servers, such as Battlefield: Bad Company, this figure will be consistent.

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## Adam

> thanks very much for everyone's help with this, i really appreciate it.
> 
> i think the ISP (Sky) charges you extra for it but im not so sure. Ill do what u said MoS and go research it abit more. My family only really use the internet for checking e-mails, im the one who does all the gaming and such =P
> 
> cheers!



Just read that you're with Sky -- I am too. I use my internet and xbox all the time and never get anywhere near the caps, or have never had trouble anyway. But the internet is free with Sky so why should you be worried about the cost?

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## Niddiboy

> Just read that you're with Sky -- I am too. I use my internet and xbox all the time and never get anywhere near the caps, or have never had trouble anyway. But the internet is free with Sky so why should you be worried about the cost?



Its not free cause we got a bundle package, its cheaper overall but if we go over the limit it charges us more. So i dont really wana be costing my parents extra.

thanks again =)

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## one

depends who your with i guess. the provider i have (Westnet Australia) allows it not to count along with heaps of other things, like itunes  ::D:

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## Niddiboy

cheers everyone. If a moderator wants to lock this now itd be great =)

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## Ynot

locked by request

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