Posted: 20th Jun, 2011 By: MarkJ

Broadband ISP Eclipse Internet has warned firms around the country that "
computer chaos" and a broadband "
meltdown" could occur if they follow the
TV Licensing and CIPD advice, which last week suggested that bosses should
allow their employees to watch live TV streams of Wimbledon (UK Tennis Tournament) from the office. An estimated 6.8 million people watched matches live online during last year's tournament.
The
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) study claimed that watching Wimbledon at work could magically "
help build team spirit and morale across the workplace", yet 86% of employers said they still wouldn't allow it.
The Director of Eclipse, Clodagh Murphy, cautioned:
"UK workers clearly want to watch Wimbledon matches live on their PCs but it’s important that businesses achieve a balance - increasing morale but not letting their day to day productivity be affected.
Not only that but streamed content uses a lot of bandwidth, making a fast and reliable connection even more imperative to make sure their system doesn’t crash. Businesses need to check whether they have any usage limits in place and the impact of exceeding these limits – are there extra charges or are the connection speeds vastly reduced? These could significantly impact a business."
We don't recall any significant businesses suffering from an "
IT meltdown" as a result of last year's tournament, although an office's network could still suffer from lower productivity due to poor internet performance. The prospect of higher than expected bandwidth bills is also very real.
Still, a well managed network or flexible boss (i.e. allowing your staff to crowd around a TV instead of several computer screens), should be able to overcome any such problems. We're sure there's a joke or two about Andy Murrays past performance in here somewhere.