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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."
I don't see anything like this happening for a long time. Television is still widely used. Only thing people watch that is streamed over the net is... well use your imagination.. And its not barney..
There won't be much streaming going on since most Americans don't know what this whole "World Cup" thing is about.
Probably not... Even if it did, there's a good chance it would be localized to everywhere besides the United States, because we just don't "get" watching soccer.
If the submitter had bothered to RTFA (I know, I know, "You must be new here") he would see that these articles are about local networks being brought down by lots of users trying to stream World Cup footage at the same, not an "Internet meltdown".
Whether such a meltdown is even possible is another question entirely, but one not covered by these articles.
Love the Third Amendment?
if porn doesn't choke the internet, no sport ever will!
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
ahem* "Football".
Well they play with a ball , using their foot, therefore: Football. Why the quotes and the ahem*?
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.
I think the closest we've been to an internet meltdown is the July 7th bombings in London.
The BBC's website was practically unusable and as far as I know they limited streaming video to UK citizens. I find it doubtful that the BBC feels they have sufficient capacity to knock out internet across the whole country.
What do I know, anyway? I can't stand bloody football!
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I take it you don't get any type of sport?
Much like any other sport really, but it makes a change from fighting in the street. Unfortunately my countrymen like to do that after the match, so they get all the fun of both.
Miri it is whil Linux ilast...
The world cup is only slightly, slightly more destructive.
I think it will be fine.
--
Music should be free
My Computer Music Tutorial Videos
People who like to drum up a bit of publicity for themselves by fearmongering every time anything happens that might result in a bit more net traffic than usual.
Personally, I'll be watching all the 2pm-kickoff matches from work courtesy of the BBC and I suspect that somehow both the NHS.net connection and the BBC site will stand up to the strain.
Funny, actually most of the world knows World Cup but not many know super bowl or world series. By the way you do realize that "world" in world series is a cruel joke right? oh well...
No. Who asks these questions anyways?
Alarmist news sells. Whether it be about cars, credit cards, or global warming, news sources try to make it as sensational and alarming as possible because it gets the ratings/hits and ad/commercial views.
What sounds more interesting?
Online coverage of World Cup predicted to cause increase in bandwidth usage across the globe.
or
OMG! The "other" football is going to make teh Interweb MELT! Run for the hills! Details at 10.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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I know you're only a troll. But anyway the the World Cup Final is the single biggest sporting event in the World period. It dwarfs the so called World Series in baseball and the Super Bowl and any of the individual Olympic events. It also happens to be a sporting event that actually deserves the word "World" in it's title unlike the World Series in baseball which as far as I can tell is contested between teams from USA and Canada exclusively and the Super Bowl where the winners are crowned as World champions (what a joke!)
99% of the USA doesn't even care(free's up a ton of bandwith) about the World Cup of Soccer so I highly doubt the Internet is suddenly going to implode.
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.
No. Who asks these questions anyways?
Well, considering the only guy quoted by both articles is a manager for a company that sells packet shaping systems...
Just give it a good old fashioned slashdotting....
emt 377 emt 4
Yes. But that's OK because Slashdot looks like crap now and nobody is going to use it. It should all balance out.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
This reminds me of the "power crisis" in California 7 or 8 years ago in which hundreds of power companies agreed to simulate brownouts in order to effectively hold energy to ransom, and raise energy prices to the insane amount that they are at today in California. Of course, many power companies went bankrupt in the resulting aftermath of legislation, but the big ones survived and profit from the scandal to this day.
What if these predictions are meant to set up a huge telecommunications breakdown on the day of the World Cup? Then AT&T and the Bells, et al., all simulate 100% traffic simulation on their networks, and "crash" their systems. Then they can say, "I told you so. Vote no on Net Neutrality so that the Internet keeps working," and effectively hold the Internet up for ransom. They may lose money in the short term, but they'd gain complete oligarchical control over the Internet.
The possibility really does scare me.
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)
you play football.
In the US, Soccer plays you! At least, things are heading that direction.
Q: What did the comedian say to the crowd?
A: If I knew, this joke would be funny.
He is using quotes to make sure the reader knows he is referring to the game where actual 'feet' are used when interacting with the 'ball', rather than the game sharing the same name where 'hands' are primarily used.
Obviously it is the former needs the quotes to avoid confusion, rather than the latter, which is much more widespread and popular.
- These characters were randomly selected.
Last Olympics, it was very obvious.
... a hell, I'm off for a lemonade, this too darn hot in here". Serious Tennessee Williams shit goin' on!
You'd be browsing some porn site, and the chicks nipples would be down around her ankles. Next thing you know her face was melting. Then you'd be on Slashdot, and someone would be half-way through dissing M$ for something and they'd trail off "... so
${YEAR+1} is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop!
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)
Or more like this: "GOOOOOO...buffering, 23%, 45%, 67%...OOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!!!!!"
By the way you do realize that "world" in world series is a cruel joke right?
Oh, we know. Every year we invite you foreign buttholes, try to make nice, put all our differences aside for a friendly game, but do you show up? No. We just sit here all by ourselves with our "Go France" foam fingers and cry into our beer that no one showed up for our party, so we scrimmage and go home, and then you guys wonder why we bomb the shit out of you.
Real nice, World. Real nice.
1. If you see a big bright mushroom of smoke rise outside your window, stop immediately streaming video.
2. If it doesn't work, stop also downloading pr0n and war3z through p2p.
3. If it still doesn't work, duck a-a-and cover.
4. Don't forget to turn on your pr0n and war3z downloads as soon as its over, or severe health and brain damage effects might manifestate.
The world's best baseball players play in the USA.
The world's best [American] football players play in the USA.
Probably because these are sports that aren't really played that much outside the US (and Japan).
A clue in return: We called baseball "rounders" at school. And it was a girl's game.
"People who like to drum up a bit of publicity for themselves by fearmongering every time anything happens that might result in a bit more net traffic than usual."
One should not believe it is bandwidth-related only. I bet you all still remember the chaos and panic the media reported about the Y2K bug. It's all about doom, plain and simple, no matter what it is about.
Asteroids that may collide and extinguish life on Earth, a computer bug that will throw us all back to the middle ages, a World Cup that will cause a "meltdown" (SIC) and render all communication in the world broken.
Doomsayers. And, why oh why, "doomsaying" reflects in AUDIENCE.
- Please, ignore everything written above.
There has been quite a bit of discussion about "where to find streams" over at worldcupblog.org. Most of the qualifying matches have been available to watch live online from Chinese and Israeli websites, but most of the "pirate" streaming sites require you to dl weird, Windows-only software to be able to watch the games, so as a Mac user I haven't been able to.
I bought my first TV and got cable just to be able to watch the World Cup this year. It's a great event.
This time it might actually happen. More people follow the World Cup than all those other events combined. Football (soccer in the USA where the ball is in more contact with hands than feet and goes by the same name) is the world sport.
Personally, I'll be watching all the 2pm-kickoff matches from work courtesy of the BBC and I suspect that somehow both the NHS.net connection and the BBC site will stand up to the strain.
Polls are predicting a very large epidemic of too-sick-to-work during the World Cup.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
To give you an example of what we're dealing with here: In SA a 1024mbps ADSL line will cost you about $150 per month, and that's capped at 3 gigs of data transfer. It's also port shaped and the IP resets every 24 hours.
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