UK ISPs Brace for Internet Traffic Surge During the Steam Summer Sale

In the modern Internet age it’s not just data traffic surges caused by a rise in video streaming during major televised events that broadband ISPs have to watch out for. The recent launch of Steam’s (Value’s digital distribution platform for PC games) traditional Summer Sale is another one that will also be giving them a capacity headache.

Twice each year Valve conducts a major sale of PC games through its hugely popular online multiplayer and digital distribution platform, which with many modern games being anything from 1GB to around 50GB (GigaBytes) in size can cause a noticeable impact on an ISPs broadband bandwidth as customers rush to grab a cheap deal and download the content.

PlusNet has already reported seeing a significant increase in Steam traffic across their network, which naturally began on Thursday evening as the sale got underway. PlusNet’s Chris Parr said, “Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of bandwidth to cope with this increase, just make sure that you’ve got enough hard-drive space for all those new games. And don’t forget that our new products are totally unlimited, so you don’t need to worry.”

Personally I’ll be grabbing The Walking Dead Season Two and hopefully a few other things, which will then in all likelihood end up sitting on my hard drive for the best part of a year before I remember to even play or find the time for them (aka – ‘Steam Sale Syndrome’). Just remember that Valve can be a bit sneaky and the discounts tend to vary, so IMO it’s often worth not getting anything unless a discount of -50% or more is applied.