According to email I received from Shaw Cable on April 28, 2011:

"To give you a better Internet experience, we've increased the 
download speed for Shaw Extreme Internet from 15 Mbps to 
25 Mbps and upload speed from 1 Mbps to 2.5 Mbps. You'll be 
automatically updated and experience the new speeds by April 30."

If this is accurate, after April 30 TPU should theoretically support up to 40 connections. Of course, TPU is currently limited to 32 players at most, so it might be time to look at increasing that limit.

I've never seen more than eight human players at once on TPU, but was that because more players caused too much lag? Would having more human players be a good thing?

We might also start running into CPU limitations on the server, so I will monitor CPU usage as much as possible.

One other thing that I've been considering is reducing the 'Server bandwidth limit' from its current setting: 'No Limit' to '2048 Kbps'. This setting is supposed to throttle overall (upload) bandwidth use to the amount specified. The actual effect felt by players is uncertain. Is it better to have the BF1942 server limit bandwidth or let it run wide open and allow the network provider's limits come into play? TPU has been running with 'No Limit' for a couple of years now.

UPDATE 2011May14: I just checked again, and it appears that the speed upgrade has kicked in. Speedtest.net says that the WAN connection's speeds are now: 22.41 Mbps download and 2.44 Mbps upload. That's up from 19.33 Mbps download and 0.76 Mbps upload for the old Extreme service. Woot!

The B17s on the Battle of Britain map were causing a lot of server crashes, so they have been removed until we can find a better solution. Sorry folks. As always, let me know if the problems continue or any new problems show up.

Apparently Shaw Cable is planning to go ahead with UBB and expects to announce pricing changes in May/June 2011:
http://openmedia.ca/news/shaw-revive-metered-internet

This is obviously bad news, and is very disappointing, as Shaw originally appeared to be listening to its customers on this issue. Stay tuned.

It's official: the Internet connection problems that were causing TPU player disconnections over the past few weeks are now gone. You may still get disconnected from time to time due to server crashes, but the incessant network disconnects are a thing of the past. Shaw Cable replaced everything from the pole to the modem.

Meanwhile, I took advantage of a promotion and upgraded my Internet service from 'High Speed' (8 Mbps download; 512 Kbps upload) to 'Extreme' (15 Mbps download; 1024 Kbps upload). This increases the theoretical limit on TPU players from seven to fourteen. Some of you may have noticed that over seven or eight players, TPU would start to lag. Hopefully the point at which severe lag starts will now be when there are over fourteen players.

As always, let me know if you see any problems. Check out the new status indicator at the top right of the site, and use the link there to report problems.

For the technical-minded: each human BF1942 player uses about 60 Kbps of upload bandwidth. Since the pipe is now 1024 Kbps total upload, that allows for a theoretical maximum players of 1024 / 60 = 14. Obviously this varies in actual use, but it's a good rough guideline.

Due to the increasing popularity of Battlegroup 1942, it will now run on Mondays as well as Sundays on the TPU server.

The Battle For Trier map was causing game client crashes, so it has been removed from the BG42 map rotation.

DarkRyda's wild new version of Aberdeen is now live on TPU.

The map still has no planes so it's primarily a tank battle. Both sides have ten tanks to choose from, a rocket launcher, four different kinds of stationary artillery and a motorcycle at their main bases. All have their spawn rates increased the TPU way. Also there are Katyushas at two of the flags on the map that spawn for both sides no matter what.

Units were chosen from all across the war for their special characteristics, with the aim being to create a wild fight, without being too concerned about historical accuracy.

AXIS UNITS
Panzer IIF (20mm, machine gun)
Panzer III (flame thrower and 3 machine guns)
Panzer III J/1 (50mm and 2 machine guns)
Panzer IV F2 (75mm and 3 machine guns)
Hetzer Flamm (flame thrower, machine gun)
Sturmpanzer VI (380mm, machine gun)
Stug III G (75mm, smoke, machine gun)
Chi-Ha 120mm(s)SP (120mm, machine gun)
Panzer II S.I,G 33 (150mm, machine gun)
Panzer VI TIGER I (88mm, machine gun)
motorcycle with side car

ALLIED UNITS
M4 Sherman 105mm (105mm and 3 machine guns)
Sherman T34E1 (75mm, machine gun, rocket launcher)
M26 Pershing (90mm and 2 machine guns)
Daimler Mk. II (40mm, machine gun, smoke)
Bishop (25 pounder, machine gun)
M3 Grant (75mm, 37mm, machine gun)
Matilda Mk.IIA (40mm, 2 machine guns, smoke)
KV-8 (45mm, flame thrower, machine guns)
Crusader II (40mm, machine gun)
Churchill VII (75mm and 2 machine guns)
motorcycle (Harley)

Thanks Ryda!

DarkRyda's new take on the 'Husky' Road To Rome map is now live on TPU.

The old setup had a lot of planes due to the carrier and there only being one AA gun. He changed that by adding a lot of new AA gun locations, a few in some pretty sweet spots. He also added BF109s at the Axis main base. Two more planes were added to the Allied carrier: Mustangs and a single B17.

Note: the carrier does not spawn the mustangs or the B17; they drop out of the sky and land on the carrier. Since the map is so small and people are not likely to be moving the carrier, it should not be a problem. The B17 only spawns one at a time, so this is just a bonus, not a B17 spawning machine. B17s seem to cause server crashes, especially when there are more than one or they are crashing at the same time.

Thanks, Ryda!

DarkRyda has been busy. First up is a new version of the Battlegroup 1942 map 4004-Narvik. He's given it the TPU touch, bumping up all the plane spawns so you can always catch your flight.

There have recently been sporadic connection problems between the TPU LAN and the Internet. Basically, the network the TPU server is on loses its connection to the Internet for a few seconds. The connection usually returns within a few seconds, but the disconnection is long enough to kick players out of TPU. This seems to have been happening over the last few days. It seems to have cleared up now, but if you are still experiencing connection problems, please let me know.

UPDATE 2011Apr04: I've confirmed that the router is getting disconnected from the Internet for a few seconds at a time at irregular intervals. I will be working with Shaw Cable to rectify this as a soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.

UPDATE 2011Apr08: Shaw Cable was here and replaced some ancient cables. We're now monitoring the WAN connection and Shaw will return to do some additional troubleshooting if the problem shows up again.

UPDATE 2011Apr09: There have been several WAN disconnects since Shaw was here. The problem remains, and may in fact be somewhat worse. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have it fixed in the next few days.

UPDATE 2011Apr11: Shaw installed a new drop just now, so almost everything has now been replaced. Keep your fingers crossed.

UPDATE 2011Apr13: No new disconnects have occurred since Shaw replaced the drop on April 11 at 1421 PST. Looking good so far.