If you're in Canada, do Steam sales NOT apply to you cause of ISP download caps?

[poohbear]

Hi all, i'm coming to Toronto for August to visit my parents, but i remember they have a download cap and that a download cap was pretty normal for all but the most expensive service plans. Does that make Steam summer sales unpopular cause you really can't download 100gb+ in games in the 1 week? How do you guys get around this?

I've travelled to many countries for work and Canada by FAR has one of the WORST internet service plans that i'm always shocked when i come back. How do you guys manage with downloads?

[SKYMTL]

As early as two years ago, I had a download cap of 60GB and it didn't cause me any issues.

I bought everything I wanted but only downloaded what I wanted to play at that time. So while I may have 100 games in my Steam account, I only actually downloaded 1-3 per month and repeated whenever I wanted to play a new title. This can cause an issue with Max Payne 3 which has a bandwidth hit of some 30GB(!!!) but if you do it intelligently, there should be no issues. Plus, there just no way you could possibly play every game from a Steam sale over the course of a single month anyways.

[Arinoth]

Whatever you download goes towards the cap, so if you're downloading games off steam that'll hit your bandwidth used.

I tend to only download/install a few games a month, I'm of the habit of only downloading games I plan to play right now or in next to play queue. I have a queue of probably 10 games to play, only have 1 game of that queue installed. Works out great as I always have a game waiting for me installed and I don't go over my cap space.

That said, come the fall I'll be back on campus where I'll download a lot of steam games to my external hdd then move them to a storage drive for later usage.

[vulcan500rider]

There are definitely some negatives to living in SK, but SaskTel is one that never comes up. Thus far, no caps, no throttling, and speeds that meet paid-for values. Can't wait until they finish their fibre-to-the-premesis program in Regina next year!

Unfortunately, I'm short on money and time with a little one at home, so I've bought nothing from the Steam Sale yet this year....lol.

[WhippWhapp]

Backtrack, Yagi, Alfa, Cuda!

[Arinoth]

Originally Posted by vulcan500rider

There are definitely some negatives to living in SK, but SaskTel is one that never comes up. Thus far, no caps, no throttling, and speeds that meet paid-for values. Can't wait until they finish their fibre-to-the-premesis program in Regina next year!

Unfortunately, I'm short on money and time with a little one at home, so I've bought nothing from the Steam Sale yet this year....lol.

That's the same case if you're with Bell Aliant in Atlantic Canada, they have no caps either. I miss my fibre line capless last year. Too bad in Saint John my service was soo slow/bad (ADSL) i had to switch to capped Rogers.

[Taichan]

Nope. My cable company gives student 40mbit packages capless internet (I've done 2.4TB in a month without hearing from them about that though that was a rare month.)

Sudbury also has a local company (Vianet) bringing FTTH and Bell Aliant (Apparently they do operate in Ontario just under the bell name but still not being the bell company.) is also bring FTTH (Though I think they might just be reselling Vianet's service.) And both are offering capless internet. Though I doubt my apartment building will get the service even once they wire my area this summer.

Always found it odd that Sudbury has better internet then most of Ontario. Now if only the cable company wouldn't put 250GB cap on their normal 40/80/200mbit package. 200mbit with a 250GB cap is just stupid.

[SugarJ]

I have a 400GB cap on my 50 Megabit Shaw connection, and the most I've ever used is 100GB in a month. I'm paying for the speed. I've bought 4 games from the Steam sale so far, about 30GB total.

[Jake_HT]

Originally Posted by Taichan

Nope. My cable company gives student 40mbit packages capless internet (I've done 2.4TB in a month without hearing from them about that though that was a rare month.)

Sudbury also has a local company (Vianet) bringing FTTH and Bell Aliant (Apparently they do operate in Ontario just under the bell name but still not being the bell company.) is also bring FTTH (Though I think they might just be reselling Vianet's service.) And both are offering capless internet. Though I doubt my apartment building will get the service even once they wire my area this summer.

Always found it odd that Sudbury has better internet then most of Ontario. Now if only the cable company wouldn't put 250GB cap on their normal 40/80/200mbit package. 200mbit with a 250GB cap is just stupid.

2.4 TB a month? WTF? no wonder there's data caps. You couldn't possibly go through that much content in a year.

Most i've ever used is a hair over 100GB in a month and I was doing quite a bit of downloading. I'm usually under 40GB, and I'm a heavy browser.

60GB sounds like a lame cap, but unless you're just filling your hard drives with porn, it's manageable.

I've got 400GB a month cap with Shaw, I will NEVER use half of it, unless I was purposely trying, in which case I deserve my overcharges for being a dick on the network.

[Arinoth]

Originally Posted by Jake_HT

2.4 TB a month? WTF? no wonder there's data caps. You couldn't possibly go through that much content in a year.

Most i've ever used is a hair over 100GB in a month and I was doing quite a bit of downloading. I'm usually under 40GB, and I'm a heavy browser.

60GB sounds like a lame cap, but unless you're just filling your hard drives with porn, it's manageable.

I've got 400GB a month cap with Shaw, I will NEVER use half of it, unless I was purposely trying, in which case I deserve my overcharges for being a dick on the network.

Yep, there is very little likelihood that most of that 2.4TB downloaded was all or mostly legal.