Tag: Wimbledon

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Business internet media

#Budget eclipses #worldcup #wimbledon #cricket for online video streaming

Wimbledon doesn’t appear to be starting online until 14.40hrs. The budget speech is online, the England v Australia 1 day cricket match is online, there is no World Cup football until 15.00hrs. So what eh?

So video streaming has hit another high. It is up 309% on the norm. The World Cup has seen a 171% increase so many more people are interested in the budget than in the world cup. 

All the recent major political events have seen large spikes in internet traffic online. This goes back to Obama’s inauguration, the last budget speech under the Labour government and the day after Polling Day in the recent general election, which was in itself a local maximum, to use my A Level maths.

Fortunately for ISPs the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his cronies are a fairly static lot.  In other words the only bit of moving is the occasional waving of an order paper (or whatever they call them in Parliament – “The Dandy” probably). This means that the bandwidth usage hasn’t gone up in proportion to the number of users online in the way that it does for the sport. Movement means change which means lots of bandwidth usage when it comes to video streaming.

Tomorrow is the biggie.  The last England Group match and one that they have to win.  It’s all there: passion, excitement, intrigue, dissent, highs, lows, vuvuzelas,  tears and tattoos but no romance – the WAGS have stayed away.

Read all about it on trefor.net.  Order, order! No hang on the budget speech has finished. Everyone has started doing some work again.

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Apps Engineer internet media

Sport streaming on the internet this afternoon #worldcup #wimbledon

At work I have a 100Mbps of uncontended bandwidth to play with.  It does me. I thought I’d watch some sport this afternoon, in between stuff. This was partly because I drew Chile in the office sweepstake – they are playing Switzerland as I write – and partly because I’m taking one of my lads to Wimbledon on Thursday – centre court – keep an eye out for me in the crowd.

Both sports are being covered on BBC  iPlayer this afternoon. I can of course watch both at the same time – and that’s despite being a bloke (or is it because of it?) –

Continue reading “Sport streaming on the internet this afternoon #worldcup #wimbledon”
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broadband Business

Broadband Network Traffic Peaks

I have occasionally written posts concerning the rise in internet traffic when there have been major world events.  Of course this included last week’s Wimbledon antics.

I thought it would be interesting for people to see an overlay in broadband network traffic week on week to see what a “normal” week would look like compared to a high traffic week.

The chart below shows last week’s Wimbledon peak traffic profile in the slightly lighter grey compared with the previous week’s.

wimbledon1

It’s a bit dark but if you click on the image a couple of times you should get a large enough view to see that when “our Andy” took to the court on Friday the traffic shot up by 30% compared to the same time last week.

The purple line at the botton represents an old low capacity 155Mbps BT Central pipe that is being decommissioned next month.  These older pipes struggle to cope with high network demand.  The 155 is being replaced with more 622 capacity.

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broadband Business internet

Andy Murray Drives Broadband Network to a New High

Our broadband network usage hit a new high yesterday as Andy Murray wallopped Juan Carlos Ferrero in straight sets at Wimbledon.  The peak remained at a constant high between 4 and 5pm, at which point presumably everyone left the office and watched it at home because the network traffic dropped right off.

My understanding is that whilst an ISP’s network might well have been able to cope with the added traffic levels some problems were caused at  local exchange level where virtual paths were seeing congestion. The virtual path is the backhaul from exchange into the BT network and on to the internet, and in this case to the BBC website.

BT’s new 21CN network should be better placed to withstand this sort of traffic burst.

Expect another peak when “our Andy” plays in the semi final.  I feel as if I have known him all my life :-).

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Business internet

Federer at the net attracts on net audience

Here we go again.  Wimbledon.  I never used to be a Wimbledon watcher but since taking my tennis playing son to see the tournament last year (Centre Court, Murray, Nadal, Venus Williams) I have changed my attitude.

This year I’m watching it from the office.  The web traffic that is.  At 13.00 hrs our network usage shot up and looking at it it is a mix of video streams that is making it happen. The same happened during Obama’s inaugural speech, this year’s budget speech (why?!) and last summer’s Olympics.

The effect is a bit like half time at an FA Cup Final when half the country gets up to make a cup of tea.  The other half of course gets up to go to the fridge to get another beer. Those kettles all going on at the same time ramps up the demand on the electricity network just like Roger Federer does for the internet.

I’m not really a football fan myself.  Come on Andy Murray!

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Engineer engineering

Exciting times

I have just finished watching the most exciting tennis match I have ever seen. I’m not a huge tennis fan and don’t often watch the TV but the Nadal v Federer Wimbledon final of 2008 ranks as a classic and I’m exhausted now after sitting through it. The match was so long that the rain conveniently fell when the family evening meal came to the table thus letting me off the decision as to whether to keep the radio on whilst eating (it is bad enough having a TV – I wouldn’t dream of having one in the kitchen 🙂 ).

As an aside I do remember keeping the radio on when Europe was winning the Ryder Cup for the first time in decades. That was a no brainer and quite a long time ago now.

That wasn’t meant to be a poor attempt at a link to a technology related matter. It does however make me think that these times are the most exciting I have ever experienced in my various lives. In my home life the kids are at an exciting stage of the game. They are developing quickly and proving very demanding but also very rewarding.

At work Timico is a hugely exciting place to be. I honestly believe that the world of business communications is on the verge of enormous change. It still isn’t going to happen overnight but at least you can now see pieces of the jigsaw assembling on the table. I am not going to list all these pieces. You only have to read other blog entries on this website to understand where I am coming from. 

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Business UC video voip

More petrol woes

Sorry if I keep mentioning this subject but businesses are seriously getitng hit with the price of petrol and it isn’t just transport firms.

I sat opposite a company sales director on the train to London this morning who said that his petrol costs had doubled in the last year. He was now having to micromanage the sales calls of his team so that the most efficient routes were used to minimise the travel costs. He was even about to sell his Porsche!!! :-).

In case you were wondering I was on the way to Wimbledon. My youngest son won two centre court tickets in the ballot at his tennis club and yes we had an absolutely fantastic time. Not a cheap day out though with Wimbledon towels retailing at £24 a pop (x two for bonding purposes).

The keywords you need  to know are Venus Williams, Rapahel Nadal and Andy Murray. A great tennis day out.