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."
"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.
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Comments: 6
FibrefredPosted: 30 January, 2012 - 10:41 AM
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If Piers is trying to predict the future this is a safe bet to be honest.
I also predict that this summer when the sun is out beaches will become more overcrowded than they are right now....
A well set-up business network ensuring business critical apps get priority (and not web browsing) won't suffer such problems
PiersPosted: 30 January, 2012 - 11:04 AM
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Well you have a point Fibrefred, nice put down!
The problem is if the rest of the internet or upstream providers are suffering the likelihood you will too. I think what is interesting is that every time we have a large event such as Wimbledon, football or even Mr Murdoch in the dock, the traffic grows at a rate unseen previously. What will be very interesting is how the sustained requirement for content for the Olympics affects the IP networks.
FibrefredPosted: 30 January, 2012 - 12:54 PM
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It was in jest Piers
Its hard to imagine ISP's upping their backhaul for consumers for a 4 week period at their own cost though. I expect it will be a case of tough luck really
BillPosted: 30 January, 2012 - 2:57 PM
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Maybe FD would like to show values on the y-axis ;)
RocklettPosted: 30 January, 2012 - 5:40 PM
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I think that Piers makes excellent sense, the point is, it is well known shared bandwidth broadband networks will suffer varying degrees of melt-down during peak periods of the Olympics (no not stop or 'break' as quoted in the article but become incredibly, unbelievably frustratingly slow) we all expect that (or at least we should).
The thing that needs to be noted is that corporate networks using purportedly 'dedicated' or not shared bandwidth will likely also dramatically slow down.
Companies will need to be very clear with employees on rules for streaming at the desktop and there have been various bodies suggesting companies go so far as providing normal TVs within offices so employees can watch without overloading the company network.
The streaming load on networks is predicted to be larger than anything ever seen before so these warnings should be heeded and precautions taken.
DeductionPosted: 30 January, 2012 - 7:12 PM
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Agreed he makes an excellent point and so does the story, didnt BT and Virgin have issues with the last world cup?
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