Looking back 20 years ago – the very first PDXLAN had just a simple DSL connection to the Internet. Attendees shared just 1,500 kbps for all 500 attendees. Back in 2003 games weren’t required to be online and the LAN was truly a LAN.
In 2004 with Steam gaining popularity and online authentication being a requirement of newer games, PDXLAN barely had enough for Steam authentication purposes.
Starting at PDXLAN 3 in July of 2004, Comcast began sponsoring PDXLAN. At first PDXLAN used 16 cable modems working in a load balancing configuration to pump a little less than a gig (cumulative) to the attendees. With Comcast’s sponsorship PDXLAN was able to keep going. As home cable modem speeds grew, so did PDXLAN’s cumulative speed across the 16 cable modems.
Fast forward a handful of years and Comcast paid to have a dedicated 1 gb fiber optic line run to the Holiday Inn on NE Columbia Blvd – just so we’d have enough Internet to allow gamers to continue playing. At the time over $30,000 was spent to put in the line.
Over a decade later in 2017, when the venue at the Holiday Inn became hard to work with – we began searching for other venues that could allow PDXLAN to grow – but the problem was always “Would it have enough Internet?”PDXLAN looked into both the Portland Convention Center and the Expo Center – but costs of Internet alone were over $300,000 for the weekend. Yes, you read that right, $300k. (Thanks Portland Metro)
With these costs being so high, PDXLAN was unable to move. But in early 2018 that all changed. We began looking at the Clark County Fairgrounds as an option. The problem? They had just a glorified DSL line as their internet connection. The venue checked all the boxes – except internet connectivity.
Comcast stepped in and gave the venue a 10 gig fiber business connection – at a cost of over $100,000! Today, we still use that connection.
It is with great pleasure and thankfulness that we welcome Comcast to PDXLAN events. They may not give prizes like other sponsors, you won’t see them sponsoring tournaments or contests – but their sponsorship is the life-blood of why we are able to do the event.
Thank you for the sponsorship Comcast! It means so much to us!