Posted: 30th Jan, 2012 By: MarkJ
The Managing Director (MD) of UK business ISP
Fluidata,
Piers Daniell, has warned that network providers are becoming "
worried" about the potential increase in office internet traffic from this year's
2012 Olympic Games in London because more of the events will be watched (streamed) online than ever before.
Piers Daniell, MD of Fluidata, said:
"It won’t just be the consumer networks suffering but also business providers who are going to have to work hard to ensure customers receive enough bandwidth for ‘business as usual’ activities as well as employees wanting to keep informed. One thing is for certain is that if the networks cope, nobody will mention it, but if they fail it will make headline news."
Daniell used last week's
tennis match between
Djokovic and Murray (27th Jan 2012) as a smaller scale example of what can happen during such events. The match saw traffic on the Fluidata network (business centric) grow by 25% (
circled in red below) as people logged onto the BBC's iPlayer video streaming service to watch from their place of work.
On the other hand we've seen concerns like this before, such as during the last
FIFA World Cup, and so far most office networks have managed to avoid any serious problems. It's a similar story with consumer broadband services. Speeds can slow but so far we haven't seen any networks breakdown because of it; Football, as the country's favourite sport, is arguably a bigger test. Time will tell.