The Alphaville Herald

LL Taps Bandwidth Brakes – May Ask Residents to Pay for Help

by Pixeleen Mistral on 26/10/06 at 4:28 pm

Can’t the Lab print and sell L$s fast enough?

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

running on empty?

Wednesday’s metaverse upgrade caused widespread mirth as residents across the grid chuckled and reported high packet loss. Liana Linden thanked everyone for their support and said, “We are working on this issue”. Usually reliable sources informed the Herald today that the packet loss problems were caused by an attempt by LL to reduce it’s streaming 3D metaverse bandwidth bills – bills which have soared out of control with the increase in online residents seen in the last few months. It would appear that this has been achieved by throttling bandwidth server side, presumably hoping residents will assume the poor performance was simply ‘another effect of an update’. If this is true, a fix may to the problem may be possible without another client software update – that is, if someone, for whatever reason, overdid the throttling.

In closely related news, Robin Linden reminded the community that customer service costs RL money, and asked for help to “define a basic level of support versus something you’d be willing to pay for, either through the type of account you have or as a one time service fee”. *cough*

Bemused residents responded to these developments with barely suppressed laughter. At the Herald we enjoy a good joke, but remind readers that this could end in tears. Is the need to charge for customer service related to ballooning bandwidth costs causing a looming cash flow problem – the result of toxic levels of unpaid accounts? Seen in this light, the controversial unverified account registrations would appear to be a gamble designed to get LL out of a cash flow hole. However, costs – in bandwidth and paying customers leaving under the onslaught – may be exceeding the ‘benefits’.

In a cash crunch scenario, LL would be forced to take unpopular measures simply to keep its head above water. If this is correct, look for increasingly frantic attempts to boost US$ income in the near future as LL struggles to keep afloat long enough to find someone to bail them out with another cash injection – or buy them out entirely. Linden Lab has been cranking up the L$ printing press recently as Supply Linden raises more US$s by selling L$s on the Lindex currency exchange – but it is unclear how many L$s the market can absorb without squeezing in-world businesses which must cash out to make RL payments.

Meanwhile, most metaverse citizen remain concerned with more mundane issues, such as slow rezing, seeing their land in shades of grey and being able to chat. In the Linden Lab blog, ariannaoranos commented, “Packet loss is atrocious. It’s always firmly in the red and sky-high. And chatting sometimes can be a bizarre experience, like an interview with Syd Barrett: you type NOW and what you typed appears two or three MINUTES later. This is ridiculous.”.

Similar comments appeared to be widespread:

“what concerns me is the packet loss (never ever had this problem before) and atrocious rez’ing problems” – Gillian Waldma

“now we update and its taking forever to rez up for me…and i even lowered my settings so i wasn’t trying to push the limits..” – Dovic Battery

“on my island, where I know EXACTLY what to expect, my personal fps is about 50% of what it should be” – Inigo Chamerberlin

Elsewhere, those that were not laughing or coughing affected an air of incredulity. In response to Robin Linden, Dan Doyle said “Please tell me I did not not read that you are even thinking of chrging for customer service”. Mr. Doyle’s was not an uncommon reaction:

“Did I honestly just read that hypothetical question of charging for customer service?” – Joshua Nightshade

“Please tell me I misread that.” – Rocket Bachman

Perhaps the most telling observation was made by Ricky Zamboni, who said, “I was always under the impression that you could afford to make basic accounts free due to the teeming masses of premium members. Was that incorrect? If it is, then why have you made basic accounts free?”.

Excellent question, Mr. Zamboni. Let the Herald know if you get an answer.