Bandwidth cap really a cap?

[Triggerhappy41]

so now that we have discovered that steam has a bandwidth cap, but looking on the steam status page it is clear that not nearly as much bandwidth is being used as can be. whats up with that?

 

[Dreglor]

my guess it that the servers havn't all have the files so, only the few that have hl2 will be serving use if you look at the content server listing only a few of them are maxed out

 

[craig]

so now that we have discovered that steam has a bandwidth cap, but looking on the steam status page it is clear that not nearly as much bandwidth is being used as can be. whats up with that?

It's cheaper and they have a good while to trickle the data out, so why rush it?

 

[Triggerhappy41]

i guess that makes sense, but then why do they have like 24 servers for the US and only 4 or so of them are running at full? 20 idle servers is a waste of money, and the only time they would be really needed would be now, but yet they go unused? sounds like bad buisness management if they are going to put a cap so low.

 

[Jmechy]

Some servers need to be left open for other things (like loading games people have just paid for). Not to mention the basic purpose of being the backend for all of the servers on the net, if they used all the bandwidth then nobody would be able to play HL/CS/mods online.

 

[Triggerhappy41]

but does that justify leaving 20 high speed servers open for just the handlings of server list requests and updates? Little too much if you ask me.

 

[JPack]

I suspect the other servers don't actually have the capacity indicated by the bar graphs. They may have the potential to reach that speed, but that's probably after a call to Limelight Networks.

 

[Triggerhappy41]

heh, makes sense.

EDIT: if you check the page now, it seems that you are exactly right.