Gaming Google Stadia Is On A Collision Course With Broadband Caps, Study Shows

With game streaming service Google Stadia dropping next month, a new study suggests that six million gamers are about to get a crash course on the problems with broadband usage caps.

Broadband caps are, if you didn’t know, complete nonsense. There’s no technical reason for them to exist, and they don’t actually help internet service providers (ISPs) manage network congestion. Experts say the real purpose of such limits is to covertly jack up your already expensive broadband bill—and punish customers looking to cut the cord on traditional cable TV services.

Google’s new Stadia streaming service is about to shine a light on the unfairness of such limits. The service, which eliminates the local console by streaming all games from the cloud, will consume as much as 15.75 GB per hour at 4K resolution. With US monthly broadband caps as low as 150 GB in many regions, you can see the problem.

A new study by broadband availability tracking firm BroadbandNow found that 6 million of the country’s 34 million gamers will exceed their broadband caps using Stadia. ISPs impose usage caps as high as 1 terabyte, then sock you with additional surcharges for extra bandwidth consumed. Needless to say, that gets expensive quickly.

This is no BS. Since I cut the cable cord my Internet bill has grown to match what the both of them were before just in Internet. Unlimited is not unlimited unless you shell out some bucks. I have a Roku and a Sony Smart TV plus a ton of devices and such but when we started using the Roku we were forced to pay almost double in Internet because of Caps.

This is no BS. Since I cut the cable cord my Internet bill has grown to match what the both of them were before just in Internet. Unlimited is not unlimited unless you shell out some bucks. I have a Roku and a Sony Smart TV plus a ton of devices and such but when we started using the Roku we were forced to pay almost double in Internet because of Caps.