Living with an annoying PC/Xbox gamer - please help!

mpchooligan

My brother all the time plays online with his xbox360 (Modern Warfare 2) and he uses up too much internet. We've already had letters and now we're getting our internet capped. It's well annoying. He's really argumentitve and quick to defend his beloved xbox and i don't think he's moving anytime today. He's really getting on mum's nerves.

What would be the best deal for a gamer?
We're on Orange at the moment at around £40 a month for internet and phone line

Oh i hate online gamers by the way. Lazy lot.


***
Oh yeah he watches a lot of anime and film streams as well.

Lokolo

I have Orange BB. We have 2 Xbox's. 4 computers. All on net.

We don't get any letters.

I suspect he is also downloading rather than playing games.

dylanuk

You really need to get a good unlimited broadband provider that won't penalise you for heavy usage.

The most obvious one is Be Broadband Unlimited - £17.88 a month, unlimited usage and you won't get your speed throttled or be charged for excess usage.

You can get a very similar deal cheaper with O2 - but you need an O2 mobile phone number (can be pay as you go if you top up at least £10 every 3 months). The O2 Premium package is then £10 a month (or £15/mth without an O2 mobile phone number).

There is also Plusnet Pro for Gamers, but this has a 40GB usage limit, which might be a problem if your brother downloads a lot. This does prioritise gaming traffic - but might be of more benefit to him than you.

The other ones would be Sky Unlimited (but you need Sky TV) or Virgin 50Mb - but you need to get Cable and it's pricey - £28/mth if you also take a Virgin phone line.

jb66

orange is shocking, go with o2 or whoever has llu'd your exchange

globalds

It will be the movies that are using all the bandwidth.

Make him chose ..Games or Movie streaming ..Tell him to get a mate to put stuff on DVD or memory stick if he wants to watch ..

And make sure he is not torrenting ..That will pile up the up/downloads.

Gaming does not use up that much bandwidth.

kwikbreaks

Moving to BE or O2 LLU is the best option if that is possible and http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php will tell you if it is.

Other than that I think applying a baseball bat to the offending equipment is probably less likely to land you in jail than applying it to the user.

If your brother is making no financial contribution then I fail to see why your parents don't simply lay down the law on usage - I would. If he is paying then let him pay for his own line and the family can take another one.

tomthered

other than the above throttle his connection via the router. Alternatively use netnanny abnd ban him from the sites that stream movies and only allow access to xbox stuff.

ComplexP

I can do online gaming for 2-3 hours a day and not come anywhere near my 20GB limit. I'm guessing the others are right with their predictions of him doing additional downloading.

Although I'm a PC gamer and I've heard that XBox 360 gaming can use a lot more for some reason.

I'd be tempted to find a way of monitoring the traffic through your router. If you can itemise the amount from torrents, gaming, surfing, streaming etc then you will be able to give him a limit his activities canot exceed. If he goes over it, then you throttle the XBox bandwidth down to 10% for the remainder of that month.

He'll get the message eventually.

TBH, I'm not sure why your mum doesn't just ban him from going online with it. It's her house, right? Otherwise, get him to pay an extra £20 per month and use the additional money to move onto an unlimited package.

EDIT: Banning him from using the internet on his XBox would actually be pretty simple. Just change the router password while he's out and reconnect all the other machines manually. Keep the password hidden away safely but don't let him have it.

Let him throw a hissy fit if he needs to and then calmly tell him that he can have the password if he agrees to reduce his bandwidth usage. If the monthly usage goes back up you change the PW again.

Simples.

If you do this, make sure you have password protected the router settings screen as well as the access because otherwise he could simply log into the router settings and change the password to whatever he wants and block everything except the XBox.

kwikbreaks

Nice idea but he could also just press the reset button on the router unless it is physically locked away. I still favour the baseball bat fix...

soul619

mpchooligan wrote: »

Oh i hate online gamers by the way. Lazy lot.


***
Oh yeah he watches a lot of anime and film streams as well.

some of us online gamers have respectable jobs an earn very decent salaries!!

i have never been throttle for online gaming so stop using it as an excuse an get a decent internet connection!

Phlik

It wont be the gaming, that doesn't use a large amount of bandwidth. It'll be movies and !!!!!!.
As others have said, change to Bethere or O2, provided you are connected to an exchange that is LLU (local loop unbundled).
If it was me though I'd buy a good business class router and throttle his connection down to 10k/b then password it .

Edit: just seen ComplexP's post, that

Phlik