Online Poker Bandwidth

[spydog]

How much bandwith is used by the poker sites? Like, if I 4-table Party Poker for 1 hour, approximately how much bandwidth would I be using?

I moved to the rural west coast of Ireland recently. I can't get broadband and I won't even be able to get a phone line for a few months.

However, I can get a mobile connect card for my mobile phone thru Vodafone, which will allow me reliable internet access (so I'm told) at 384k. It's fairly pricey, as they charge for bandwidth usage and not per minute.

[JoePro]

I don't think a lot of bandwidth is required. While on vacation at my sister's house in New Jersey, I was able to 4-table party (and skins) off her laptop over a 56k dialup connection. I did not lose my connection once and didn't have problems with any hands.

[TheTROLL]

You won't need above 56k (or even close) and typically you won't get above 110k. What is the price/MB there, out of interest?

[spydog]

The speed of my connection is not a concern, as the service I would be getting is faster than dial-up (384k). I'm curious how much data gets transferred during 1 hour of 4-tabling at Party Poker because I get charged by the amount of data transferred. It costs €70/month for 100 MB of data transferred.

[JoePro]

Holy crap!! That's expensive!!!!!

And to think I was bitching yesterday because my cable modem service will be going up by 5$/month in september. It's currently @ 45$/ month, UNLIMITED, 6.1mbps.

[TheTROLL]

You didn't pick up on this being over a cellphone network, did you?

[JoePro]

Nope, I had not. Still way too expensive.

[cgwahl]

I won't be able to test it until I get home in about 4 or 5 hours, but if you like I can try seeing how much bandwith is used just by observing a bunch of tables on PokerStars or Paradise or both for an hour or so.

Just observing (no playing) since after I get home I need to go somewhere for a little over an hour. But better than nothing I suppose. Plus you won't get inflated data by me accessing the internet inbetween hands...


My guess is however it is very minute.

[cgwahl]

I ended up staying home, but watched TV as it was going. Until I accidently closed my eyes and fell asleep passed the hour limit.

Also closed a few tables now and then when I saw them get to less than 7 people and reopened a different table.


On my laptop (wirelessly connected)

1:30:00

4 tables observed on PokerStars

Sent: 738,720 bytes
Received: 3,365,492 bytes


I'll try it again later if you want just because I am curious for just 1 hour. Also going to disable chat and see if the data received drops (although I doubt it will). May also try it on Paradise instead since its possible PokerStars just uses more bandwidth...