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Will World Cup Streaming Cause Internet Meltdown?
MetaNick writes "It seems with every worldwide sporting event, e.g., Olympics, World Cup, we hear warnings of a "meltdown" as more and more broadband users attempt to stream video of the event to their browsers. And such predictions have just begun for the World Cup just getting underway: World Cup streaming to cause network meltdown, World Cup by broadband endangers networks. Has this ever really happened? Will it happen with this the World Cup just getting underway? I tend to doubt it. I looked for articles discussing how predictions of meltdowns did NOT come to pass, but I couldn't find any."
Well, the BBC is using multicast to stream matches out to UK based residents.
Multicast is perfect for this kind of situation, and I don't think we'll see a 'meltdown' because of it.
Has it happened?
Yes! - In 1999 - Victoria Secret Provided a live streaming version of their fashion show. There were many individuals who couldn't connect to that site, and there were reports of other non-Related bandwidth issues related to the multicasting.
There are a few things going in the WC's favour. The highlights won't be broadcast live - so that there is time to get content to mirrors. There are also staggered releases across the globe. I suspect we'll see bandwidth slowdowns as you go further down the network tiers. The bigger problem I see with this goes back to the tiered Internet structure. This will be a perfect opportunity for the network providers to complain about bandwidth costs!
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
For temporary slow-downs, certainly major events cause problems, and most of those are indeed caused by streaming. More specifically, unicast streaming. If streaming was predominatly multicast, there would be no meaningful load imposed, no matter how many people had broadband.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
So although the name appears to be logical, history would imply that it is not quite as simple. The origins of the game are sufficiently ancient and obscure - although it almost certainly started in the British Isles - that there is no absolute guarantee that the original name was even in English and therefore may be merely phonetically derived from an earlier name. That happens a lot. In that case, the modern name would have no meaning whatsoever.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Astroturfing, by definition, is "fake grass roots" -- when a company gets people to write or post opinions on the company's behalf while claiming to be independent citizens. The articles noted that the source of this information are company representatives. So the company reps are acknowledging that the information comes from the company; this is not astroturfing. Astroturfing would be 5 guys writing letters to the editor saying "we're network guys, and we think bad things are going to happen unless people buy packet shaping technologies", and later, we find out that the five "network guys" actually work for Packeteer.
That doesn't Packeteer is right, just that they're not astroturfing. The existence of two articles quoting one obscure guy is suspicious. This usually means someone issued a press release.
The article from the Register does not take the Packeteer guy very seriously. They didn't fall for it. However, the vnunet staff are being non-critical in that they are writing stories based on the input of vendors without getting sanity checks. The vnunet article accepts the two network vendors' claims at face value without asking someone else if there might not be an opposing point of view. In my book, that's bad journalism.
"Polls are predicting a very large epidemic of too-sick-to-work during the World Cup."
Here in Brazil both private and government companies are already having extended working periods. It is almost common sense that the days Brazil will play will have half periods of work.
Usually my company is open 08:00 to 12:00 and 13:30 to 17:30.
Now we are working from 08:00 to 12:00 and 13:30 to 18:00.
During the first game it will open from 08:00 - 13:00 and nothing else.
- Please, ignore everything written above.