Xbox Live: ISPs Sign Up

[Ion Silverbolt]

Details about broadband support for XBox live have surfaced.

Microsoft continues to gear up for the release of Xbox Live in North America on November 15th, today by announcing that 10 U.S. and three Canadian broadband service providers have signed on to support Xbox Live. The list, which represents nearly 80 percent of the combined U.S. and Canadian broadband market, includes: Bell Canada, BellSouth Corp., Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc., EarthLink Inc., MSN, Qwest Communications, Rogers Cable Inc., SBC Communications Inc., TELUS Corp., Time Warner Cable's Road Runner service and Verizon Communications.
General manager for Xbox, J Allard, stated that Xbox Live will work with most high-speed ISP’s (in addition to the list above), and that “Xbox Compatible” broadband service providers are going to be displaying the “Xbox Compatible” logo for retail offerings at various outlets. Moreover, several providers listed above are expected to create marketing campaigns supporting Xbox Live.

Xbox Live is set to debut at over 7,000 U.S. and Canadian retail outlets on November 15th. The Xbox Live Starter Kit, to recap, will retail for $49.95 (U.S.)/$79.99 (CAD), and include a year’s subscription to the service, headset, and online trial versions of Moto GP and Whacked!. Xbox Live makes its debut in Europe and Japan during 2003, with beta programs set to launch later this year.

Source: Planet Xbox (www.planetxbox.com)

[Freak]

This reminds me Godzilla preparing to annihilate another city...

dead competition~

[SKYHN]

What exactly are they going to be "marketing"? People are gonna see "Xbox" and "$49.99 a month" and say no way, exactly why Sony didnt sign any deals. They actually did sign a few deals with ISP's for free trials, to include them on the setup disc for those that didnt have an ISP, for dial-up.

Even if the ISP is compatable with it, most ISPs wont work with automatic settings. I read an xbox live forum about when you first setup XBL with your isp and its similar to the PS2 Net Adapter. Theres 2 options, Automatic or Manual. Automatic detects the DNS server(depending on which ISP you have) as well as your dynamic IP. But many of them will not work with that because of other settings that have to be entered manually. Most people do not know what any of the settings for their ISP are.

BTW, why do they have to make any deals with MSN? Microsoft runs that, dont they?

[bLaCkOuT]

It might be like my first job ... Marshall's and TJ Maxx. They were both owned by the same corporation but two totally seperate entities.

In this case, MS would be the corp and MSN/XBox as the two companies.

[Null Actor]

SKYHN, curb your paranoia.

This is just MS letting xbox users know which ISPs are compatible. This is a good thing, just so that people can know whether their isp is good enough for xbox live. This most likely consists of any of the following:

-Test to make sure the isp's connection can maintain the minimum requirement for 'broadband' (probably 15k/s or so, both directions)

-Test to make sure that the isp has a decent ping to microsoft's servers

-Make sure all required ports are open, and that isp firewalls don't interfere with the service.


And so what if the xbox doesn't work with the automatic settings? A lot of computers don't either. Since MS is certifying ISPs, they are probably giving those same ISPs step by step instructions on how to get a user's xbox online as well, so joe blow can just call his isp and say "How do I go online with my xbox?"

[SKYHN]

No paranoia, just commenting.

It makes sense to test the ISP, but that wont make too much of a difference. It comes down to what the user can do. Line quality on the users end is the deciding factor. My uncle is 11k+ from the CO for his DSL. He cant get higher than 56k speeds and pings are worse than dial-up. His physical line is no good for DSL. The whole house has to be rewired, and it isnt cheap. The house is only 4 years old too. So it may be "Compatable" overall, but it will come down to the user. What will happen if someone orders a DSL package, waits the many weeks to get the line activated, receives their equip and installs, only to find that their line cant sustane a speed fast enough for XBL? They are screwed.

The PS2 Net Adapter came with a in depth detailed manual with step by step instructions on how to find out what settings to use for your ISP if automatic didnt not work, and people still could not figure it out. Im surprised we didnt see any posts on this site asking how to do it.

[redwench]

most large companies run individual business units, that have little to no interaction with each other. i dont doubt that the xbox is one such unit. MSN would be another. the windows OSs would be a third. hardware (keyboard, mouse, etc) would also be a separate business unit.
business units would buy and sell to each other just as any other company. so a fee would be negotiated in this case.

[Null Actor]

Originally posted by SKYHN
No paranoia, just commenting.

It makes sense to test the ISP, but that wont make too much of a difference. It comes down to what the user can do. Line quality on the users end is the deciding factor.

I know that, and if the ISPs know the details of what the xbox requires, they'll be able to inform the users of if their particular situation is compatible.

[Ion Silverbolt]

A lot of those "special settings" aren't actually needed. The guy that wired me up put them in and it worked for 2 hours. After that, it stopped responding so I set to automatic and it's worked ever since.

Even when my IP was static, those "special" settings did nothing as far as interfering with my internet usage in anything when I removed them.