Page:Australian Competition and Consumer Commission v Valve Corporation (No 3).pdf/18

 30 The way that the Steam content servers in Australia (like others outside Washington State) operate is that when a consumer seeks to download a game, the servers in Washington State provide the content to the Australian content server. If that content is not requested again within a limited period of time (ranging from about 1 to 18 days in Australia, depending upon the server), it is automatically removed from the Australian content server.

31 One reason why Steam uses content servers in Australia and elsewhere in addition to its Washington State servers is efficiency. Steam aims to ensure that a consumer can download content as fast as possible. In fact, as Mr Dunkle explained (ts 107), the Steam Client knows how to download from multiple sources, including content servers and content delivery networks.

32 The content delivery networks are commercial third parties with whom Valve has business arrangements. These third parties permit Steam to have access to their networks to deliver Steam content to subscribers all around the world at agreed bandwidth and delivery capacity. Members of content delivery networks obtain the advantage of being able to provide their customers with fast, direct downloads without having to obtain the download from Washington State or other servers. Some of these third parties, such as a "key partner" called Highwinds, have servers in Australia.

33 In addition to Valve's contracts with global content delivery network providers, Valve also has arrangements with smaller providers throughout the world. Two of those in Australia are Internode and ixaustralia.

34 Steam's content servers, and the content delivery networks, hold a mirror image, or "proxy cache" of the software. However, a foreign content server (such as an Australian content server) will still need to communicate with the servers in Washington State to obtain authentication of the subscriber in relation to its communications with a subscriber (ts 109).

35 The content server which is chosen for a download by the Steam Client depends on an algorithm. The algorithm is designed to calculate the most efficient means of downloading based on available server capacity and to project download speed of available servers within the global network. Mr Dunkle said that it was "possible but not guaranteed" that the most efficient method for an Australian subscriber to obtain contention would be to use a server in Australia (ts 112).