GameRail Could Give Gamers What They Want

Some latency-sensitive traffic may soon be leaving your network and traveling over Level 3's thanks to this new service.

by Jim Thompson [February 16, 2007]

For gamers, speed is everything. Take it away and the gaming experience is about as exciting as watching fish die in the tank at your local K-Mart. What good is getting the drop on the forces of evil if it takes forever for the death ray to vaporize them? The problem is not an alien force-field, but a little something called latency. Network engineers, gamers, and game developers have been fighting this force of evil since the beginning of the internet.

Both hardware-based and software-based solutions have been employed to combat this scourge of the internet. Software programs like Xfire, PlayLinc, and SteelSecurity, which (among the other services they offer) attack the problem of lag by optimizing and correcting problems on the local machine, are but a few of the weapons in the anti-latency wars. Hardware solutions like KillerNIC move computations to a separate processor.

Sure, these things help, but the gain is usually minimal—a few extra frames and a somewhat lower ping rate. The downside is that the cost does not always justify the minimal increase in speed. Still, for the serious gamer, any increase is worth the expense. After all, these guys don't just want to win, they are out for blood!

High speed network
GameRail claims they have the ultimate solution. They off load game traffic onto the high-speed, fiber optic-based Broadwing Corporation network. The result, they claim, is a potential ping rate as low as 30 to 35 ms on a connection between Los Angeles and New York. By carrying game traffic over a dedicated network, they can bypass much of the congestion and cut the latency that comes when data hops from one network to another.

(Note: Broadwing Corporation was acquired by Level 3 Communications on January 3, 2007)

"We offer a bypass network," said John Alden, vice president of business development for GameRail. "We bypass the Internet and directly connect the game player with the game server. In the carrier hotels where we have presence, we cross-connect to the game server providers. We also cross-connect to a regional ISP, a cable company and universities."

The speed of data traveling the Internet over fiber optic lines is limited—yes, I said "limited"—by the speed of light. For every 1,000 miles of distance that light travels over fiber, there is a loss, or increase in lag, of about 8 to 10 ms. For our L.A. to N.Y. run—a distance of about 3,000 miles—the ping, under ideal conditions, would be approximately 24 to 30ms. But there is more. Each piece of network equipment along a path creates an additional delay because it takes time to convert data packets from an optical to an electrical format, inspect those packets, route the data, and then convert it back to an optical format.

GameRail moves traffic onto a private network that is optimized for gaming. This reduces the number of hops and provides the most efficient routing. Considering that the typical cross-country connection gets a ping of more like 80 to 100 ms, a ping of 35 ms would be excellent.

For the gamer, getting connected is as easy as killing bad guys in level one of Doom. "The game player loads a thin client on his machine which steers him off the ISP's network and onto our network," said Alden. "We set up the routing relationship between the game player and the game server. It's that simple." He added that no special hardware is required and nothing needs to be changed with the ISP.

It's just as simple for the ISP or GSP (Game Server Provider). All that is needed is a cross-connect in the local carrier hotel. GameRail will provide the ISP or GSP with a direct connection to their network.

"The ISP does not have to do anything to his server or equipment," noted Alden. "They just connect to our network and we bear all the cost."

The cost for the gamer will be "approximately $10 to $13 per month," said Alden. In most cases, GameRail bills the client directly for the service, but they are willing to talk to ISPs who may want to bill customers themselves.

Big business
For the ISP, it could be a great revenue source. Gaming is one of the biggest money makers in the industry and it is growing every day. Video games generate over $10.5 billion in annual sales, which is more than first-run movie releases ($9 billion per year) and DVD/VHS rentals ($8 billion per year). In fact, in 2004, the opening day sales of a single game (Microsoft's Halo2) exceeded Hollywood's then biggest-ever three-day opening weekend for a feature film (Spiderman).

It is estimated that 50 percent of all Americans play video games and 44 percent of most frequent gamers play online with more than 800,000 people playing in online gaming leagues.

ISPs foresee benefits
Another benefit is that when gaming traffic is moved to the GameRail network, it frees up this precious resource for the ISP. To make it even better from a value proposition, the ISP can still charge the customer for the use of the bandwidth.

"For us it was a no-brainer—there is no additional cost associated with it and it gives us an additional service to sell," commented Karl Zimmerman of Steadfast Networks, a Chicago-based web services provider specializing in webhosting, dedicated servers, and colocation. "It will help to set us apart from the competition and set our customers [GSPs] apart because they can advertise that they are using the GameRail network."

Matt Lehner of Aim2Game, a game and voice server provider with locations in Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Jose, Seattle and Atlanta, is also optimistic. He adds, however, that it is a bit early to predict solid gains, " I really cannot project sales at this point because we are not sure who will sign up for it. We still have to wait to see what the true impact will be among the gaming community."

Plans in progress
At the time this story was written, GameRail was still in the early stages, with presence in seven cities: St. Louis (Bandwidth Exchange), Atlanta (56 Marietta), Chicago (Digital Realty Trust), Dallas (InfoMart), Los Angeles (One Wilshire), New York (111 8th Avenue) and Seattle (Westin Bldg).

They have plans to open in other U.S. cities and even to go international with the service. "We are activity looking for a node in Toronto, Canada and maybe in Vancouver as a secondary city. We also looking at connectivity in Korea and Japan," said Alden.

Currently, they are asking ISPs and GSPs for "non-binding letters of intent" so they can determine what city will be the next to join the network. If the ISP is large enough, and in a carrier hotel where GameRail has a presence, GameRail will pay for a DS-3 connection to their network. Alden was quick to add that they are willing to talk to any serious ISP, wherever they are located. Another issue is that the current software client works only with Windows PC. Alden said that the company is 'working on' making GameRail compatible with all platforms, but until then, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, Macintosh, and Linux users will have to wait.

Testing on the network is progressing. According to Lehner, "GameRail is still testing their network and software. From what I know, their full start is still something like three to six months away."

— End