HI,
OK, here's the story on the download speeds. Last month the server was pushing a sustained 25-30 Mb/sec due to too many connections (from excessive use of download managers, and just plain old sheer demand). This got the quick attention of the datacenter, who actually shut the server down for a few hours one day because they thought I was running some sort bittorrent server. When I discovered that all my sites were down and contacted my server admin and convinced him I was running a legitimate business, they brought it back up and immediately the bandwidth rate spiked back up to more than 20 Mb/sec, which exceeds the allotment parameters on my dedicated server. I was then forced to install some sort of bandwidth limiter or be faced with a several thousand dollar bandwidth bill, something my budget wasn't/isn't prepared for.
I am looking into upgrading my pipe in preparation for new releases later this fall which will allow me to exceed the current parameters, but this will take some time and expense, so for now the only solution is some stringent bandwidth allocation, which will slow download speeds from what they were before last month.
Meanwhile, I encourage everyone to voluntarily limit their use of download managers, and to take advantage of the free shipping on DVD packages.
Thanks
