Press Release

Easynet helps businesses put the World Cup at the Back of the ‘Net

10/06/2010

Easynet is warning businesses across Europe that their networks could slow dramatically during the World Cup. With many fixtures kicking-off during European working hours, football followers across the continent will look to stream live footage over the internet to their PCs to keep up with their teams. Doing so, however, could undermine the performance of business networks, causing applications, email and web systems to run slowly or, in extreme cases, crash altogether.

The company has produced a list of tips for businesses to deal with increased demand for bandwidth:

• Speak to your network provider to ensure that your bandwidth for business data traffic is ring-fenced – if not, think about finding a new provider
• Set up a TV in a meeting room to allow those who want to watch the game to do so , and block access to video-streaming sites from office PCs
• Implement flexible working policies so that staff can fit working commitments around fixtures
• Make contingency plans for network outages: secure extra bandwidth temporarily or use alternative solutions, e.g. mobile broadband

With almost every European broadcaster likely to stream footage live via their websites, the 2010 World Cup promises to be the most Internet-driven yet. Easynet estimates that streaming a game on one machine uses between 800Kbps to 1.5Mbps* of bandwidth.

Most businesses operate networks which have a maximum capacity of 100Mbps. Assuming that half of this network is already in use with everyday office traffic, just 30 employees streaming a game at any one time could result in overloading the network.

To help combat potential problems, Easynet’s Network Monitoring Team will keep an eye on bandwidth use and alert any customers who look as though they may be heading for an outage. Easynet will also offer its customers sophisticated management tools, allowing them to monitor application performance and prioritise business-critical applications.

Koen Vanpraet, global sales and marketing director, Easynet, said: "Companies must speak to their network providers to ensure that business operations are unaffected during the games. Ring-fencing bandwidth for business data traffic will help companies put the World Cup to the ‘back of the net’ and ensure key business systems are unaffected." 

Easynet has pinpointed the games most likely to undermine European networks unless preparatory measures are taken (all times CET unless otherwise stated):

• Spain V Switzerland, 16th June, 3pm
• Germany V Serbia, 18th June, 1.30pm
• France V South Africa, 22nd June, 4pm
• Italy V Slovakia, 24th June, 3pm
• Slovenia V England, 23rd June, 3pm BST

* Based on BBC iPlayer standard definition streaming which uses 800Kbps default streaming, with the high quality option increasing the bandwidth to 1500Kbps. BBC also offer a limited HD service; it is unknown whether World Cup games will offer this option but this increases the bandwidth to 3.2Mbps per stream.