Demand not there for great tennis

Every year when major sporting events have been aired during working hours we have always taken a keen interest on how many of our customers watch it over iPlayer whilst in the office. For us it has demonstrated the growing demand for bandwidth, even if not specifically linked to a business need, and the trend for growth as it becomes more common place.

The Olympics last year saw huge levels of traffic across our whole industry as people used iPlayer to keep abreast of developments while at their desk. However without doubt the biggest impact has always been Wimbledon where show stoppers such as Murray has seen everyone at very specific times logon to see what is happening.

This year however, even though Murray’s last game yesterday (1^st July) was held during office hours, we saw minimal impact on transit graphs as people watched over lunch and into the early afternoon. Which is interesting because I don’t believe the game was any less appealing, more so probably considering his recent success and ability to win gold in the Olympics, so why didn’t we see the spike we are used to?

Well there are a few factors. Firstly bandwidth levels this year for us are about four times higher than the same time last year which could have deflated the overall impact. This could also mean more customers are using the network to deliver TV during the day, maybe addicted following the Olympics, and hence the traffic was already there. Alternatively IT Managers are better at managing bandwidth within their organisation and availability to services such as iPlayer is no longer accessible during working hours. Whatever the reason it looks like IP TV is no longer, well for us anyway, the measure of demand.