PS3 download speeds - a matter of timing

As you may recall it last took me just over 7 hours to download a 6Gb file on a Sunday morning. Last night I tried to download a 500Mb file. I started it off then thought "While the console's on I might as well play a game". Last time I did this the download continued in the background, this time it didn't.

It seems it depends on the game. If it's multiplayer it seems that it reserves the entire internet connection for itself regardless of whether you are using it or not. With the slow speeds I didn't realise this until some time into a mission and I wasn't going to stop at that point.

So with the download frozen at 4% I stopped the game and let the download continue. Half an hour later and it had reached 53% "Sod this", I thought. "Hmm what would happen if I paused it then switched off the console, would it still be there ready to resume later?"

This morning before 7am I fired up the console and there it was waiting to resume and off it went. I put the controller down and performed my usual morning routine then came back to find it was just finishing. How long did it take to pick-up the remaining 47%? Well put it like this the controller turns itself off automatically after 5 minutes and it was still on. Yep I'd resumed the download just before 7am and it finished just before 7am that means  it was operating at pretty much the maximum speed of the line.

If I'd had that speed when downloading the movie I could have almost watched it 'live'.