The recent 2GigaByte (GB) patch for a popular online multiplayer game, World of Warcraft (WoW), has apparently caused some headaches for both ISPs and the BBC's technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones. Writing on his blog last week, Cellan-Jones said:


It turned out that Cellan-Jones's son had been busily downloading the latest WoW patch, which clocked in at an impressively huge 2GB. However it's likely that more than 2GB would have been transferred because WoW's updater is P2P based, which uploads and shares data with others at the same time as it downloads.

Typically multiplayer gaming itself usually doesn't consume this much bandwidth because the data packets must be small for the game to run smoothly (low latency). However modern patches and updates can often be huge, reaching into the GigaBytes. In this case even some ISPs noticed the difference:


Cellan-Jones has since decided to shell out some extra cash for a larger 50GB usage allowance. It is a good reminder of how bandwidth consumption can come back to bite you in the bum unless you keep a close eye on it.