Business ISP Easynet Connect has warned small businesses that their internet connections could be "brought to a crawl" as staff make use of bandwidth hogging media streaming services to follow the World Cup via office broadband links. The concern echo's an almost identical claim from ISP Eclipse Internet late last month (here).

Easynet points out that a fairly standard office of 20 workers streaming the world cup via the BBC's highest quality iPlayer TV service at the same time would consumer 30Mbps of bandwidth, rising to 75Mbps for 50 staff! Even a low bandwidth radio broadcast would eat up to 2.4Mbps if 50 people are using it.


The ISP warns that this kind of usage is significantly higher than the relatively modest day-to-day activity of checking email and conducting VoIP calls etc. Easynet Connect points out that those most likely to suffer are businesses who have cut corners by adopting consumer grade "business" broadband connections (i.e. high contention and low quality of service measures).


Broadband is a shared "Best Efforts" platform and so those who believe that such problems will be isolated to office workers are sorely mistaken. As a result even those who aren’t following the football could also risk having their bandwidth affected by their football loving colleagues and neighbours.

In reality this isn't the first major event to test broadband ISPs and office networks. The recent General Election caused huge interest among internet users and sent online video traffic into the sky, although we don't know any offices that crashed because of it. Most people also still prefer the higher quality and better presentation of a traditional TV to watching such events on a computer.

In any case many businesses probably aren't in a position to change ISP in time for a single event like the World Cup. Easynet recommends that managers should at least discuss any concerns with their ISP ahead of time. Other firms may prefer to restrict bandwidth or offer employees the ability to watch key matches in their own shared office environment. In short, plan ahead.