How To Deal With World Cup Net Surge

IT managers should brace themselves and their internet networks for potential gridlock on Wednesday 23 June when England play a crucial World Cup game, according to managed services provider Star.

Star warned that IT managers need to be aware of a potential surge in internet traffic for the football World Cup, with a major problem expected when England plays Slovenia on 23 June at 3 pm in the afternoon, when the majority of people will still be at work. And to make matters worse, on this day Wimbledon has the second round of men’s singles, with Andy Murray [a British tennis player – Editor ] potentially competing.

World Cup Surge

Star has based its predictions on similar traffic spikes that last took place during the last month’s general elections, last Summer’s Olympic games, and the March 2009 budget speech, when online video streaming played a major role in network consumption.

“There has absolutely been a spike in traffic,” said Star’s chief operating officer John Adey. “Our focus is on maintaining a service for our customers, for whom the internet is critical in order to do business. During last summer’s Olympic games for example, the interest from the general public created a significant spike in internet traffic. The more successful Team GB were, the bigger the spike, as more media coverage meant more excitement.”

“This is when tools such as the BBC iPlayer and other competitor products really started to become popular,” Adey told eWEEK Europe UK.

“We noticed a similar spike during the April 2009 budget, and then last month’s general election we saw a 22 percent above-normal spike in traffic (above normal peaks on our network on Friday 7 May,” said Adey.

“Even during the opening matches of the world cup there have been increases in traffic, with similar stats during today’s Holland versus Denmark match. And last Friday afternoon, before the England match even began, we saw an 18 percent peak,” he said.

What To Do

So how should IT and network managers prepare for these bandwidth spikes?

“The more proactive, forward planning IT mangers are already worrying about this, and if people don’t plan, there is a really good chance they will be caught out,” Adey warned. “There is a range of things that can be done from the planning prespective.”

“Simply relying on your firewall to block traffic can risk making the Internet useless to employees,” he said. “Other options include URL filtering and URL blocking, and this is definitely an option. Many customers come to us to do that. Another option may be to create an an acceptable usage policy regarding video streaming at work. This could take the form of not allowing it at all, or allowing for limited access during certain times of the day when there no other processes  running.”

“Other customers use us to prioritise those applications that are struggling to use strained network resource, and we can set them up a policy that ensures that voice for example gets a guaranteed portion of traffic. The back office systems get the next priority, and then browser traffic gets any bandwidth that is left over.”

“Wednesday week (23 June) is going to be a critical time for IT and network managers,” Adey warned.. “For many customers, the last mile going into the building, which is the most challenging to upgrade, will become the pinch point for them.”

“We have made provisions our end to cope, and our customers will not be competing with consumer traffic as we have invested in additional bandwidth,” said Adey. “And we are currently expecting a 50 percent peak in traffic as England gets further and further in the competition.”