Zen Internet UK Explains its Preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games

Rochdale-based UK ISP Zen Internet has unveiled its strategy for coping with the “massive amount of demand for bandwidth” (e.g. from online video streaming services) and related concerns during the forthcoming London 2012 Olympic Games, which will begin at the end of this month.

The ISP states that it has spent “several months” preparing for the event “in order to minimise the impact on [our] service as much as feasibly possible“. But ensuring that their network has enough capacity to cope isn’t the only measure and Zen has also taken steps to boost staffing levels during the games.

Zen Statement

“We still stick firmly with the policy of no Fair Usage Policy (FUP) and no traffic shaping on our award winning broadband services. This means that with us, unlike many other ISPs, you can enjoy your usage allowance at the fastest speed your connection can support at anytime, no matter what type of application, service or media you want to access.

If you are going to be watching the Olympics online you may want to keep an eye on your usage.”

Zen’s Measures to Ensure Adequate Staffing Levels

* Decreasing the number of employees that can be on holiday at any one time.

* Reviewing our shift patterns to identify where we need to add additional resource during the predicted peak periods.

* Maximising the availability of customer facing team employees by minimising meetings, rescheduling training courses and limiting time spent on projects.

Meanwhile the UK government was recently forced to admit that the internet probably wouldn’t “drop out“, as it feared earlier this year, during the games (here). Instead it expects most broadband ISPs to cope without any problems, although some slowdown would not be unexpected.

Never the less it’s important to remember that most ISPs and businesses have long since adapted to cope with higher load from major sporting events. It might also surprise the government that a lot of people aren’t as interested in the Olympic Games as they might otherwise want us all to be. It should be fun but many would still rather watch F1 or a football World Cup.