[NNagain] cloud gaming on a comeback?

[Spencer Sevilla]

I’ve thought about this exact point for years. Game network programming often uses some complexity to split low-bandwidth low-latency traffic (e.g. location updates) from bigger amounts of data transfer. Similarly, the LTE/5G stack provides amazing primitives to segregate and prioritize different traffic streams at a low level throughout the entire network. You’d think they were a natural fit for each other, but the semantic differences (and IMO the telco architecture’s need to control *everything* and breakout traffic by content type) are pretty large and hard to get around. To make the point clear I’ve sometimes idly considered a joke of a solution wherein a gaming app opens up a phone call to one of their servers and uses that channel for low-bandwidth-low-latency traffic encoded using an audio codec, and sends everything else over as generic data.

I am deeply interested in best of both worlds solutions, or specifically a more content-blind/neutral way for ISPs/Telcos to prioritize certain low-bandwidth-low-latency traffic streams. I’ve seen that topic discussed a fair amount on this listserv and have sincerely appreciated the nuanced points raised :-)

Spencer

> On Jan 10, 2024, at 08:33, Dave Taht via Nnagain <nnagain at lists.bufferbloat.net> wrote:
> 
> This does a pretty good job of summarizing the benefits, and issues,
> behind making gaming a for-pay at the isp service, among other things.
> 
> https://www.lightreading.com/cloud/telcos-should-offer-dedicated-gaming-internet-packages-ericsson
> 
> In the case of LTE/5G if they could merely deliver a solid home gaming
> experience, it would be a win... and they still can´t.
> 
> -- 
> 40 years of net history, a couple songs:
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9RGX6QFm5E
> Dave Täht CSO, LibreQos
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