As the world watches the last games in the group stage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa, we’ve had a long enough period to make some observations about the popularity of the event.  Of course, news sites have seen record-setting numbers of hits, and Twitter is buzzing with World Cup topics.  This information is interesting, but incomplete; what about the impact in terms of Internet bandwidth?

Here in Canada, the games are broadcast live on CBC and are simultaneously available for streaming from the CBC’s website.  Rogers is also making the games available with their Rogers On Demand TV and website services, which also provide live streaming to mobile devices.

CBC’s service uses the Akamai content delivery network to power their streaming, and the results have been stellar – just look at the detail in the screenshot below.

You can see the akamaihd network at work in the bottom left:

The World Cup possesses a combination of factors that are contributing to its significant Internet presence:

• It is the ultimate competition in the world’s most popular sport, and sporting events must be seen live by diehard fans
• It has global popularity, even in countries who didn’t send a team to South Africa
• Games take place over a period of many hours, spanning many time-zones, so a large number of workers engage in streaming activities at the office (where TV viewing is typically not available)

Other events in the last few years have possessed one or two of these characteristics (for instance, President Obama’s inauguration), but none have had all three to the extent that the World Cup has.

Many service providers have tools in place that can measure the bandwidth impact – one such tool is Sandvine’s recently-launched Network Data Analytics product.  One of the features of this product is a Network Summary dashboard that captures how the network is performing, and illustrates the shifting nature of Internet traffic profiles.  A particular tool on this dashboard is a series of “Top 25” lists that highlight popular websites, video providers, and applications.  One of the early adopters of Network Data Analytics is a Canadian service provider, and the impact of the World Cup on this provider’s network was immediate.

Here is a snapshot of the Top 25 Websites list from June 15th, note that akamaihd.net has surged onto the list.  The snapshot shows the traffic from the previous day, so on June 14th, akamaihd.net was the 12th largest website on this network, by total bytes.  We can also see that on June 13th, the site was the 19th most popular, and between June 13th and June 14th, akamaihd.net increased in total bytes by more than 80%.  Clearly, this service is coming out of nowhere to become a significant generator of traffic on the network.

Indeed, by June 18th, akamaihd.net had risen to second-place, behind only YouTube, and was still increasing its byte usage at an astonishing rate of more than 80% day-over-day.

By June 22nd, the growth had slowed somewhat, and YouTube still held onto its lead – however, let’s keep in mind that Canada is not competing in this World Cup, so the fact that CBC’s streaming is enjoying such success is a testament to the infectious nature of the event.

Figure 1 – June 15th, 2010	Figure 2 – June 18th, 2010	Figure 3 – June 22nd, 2010

While network use is good for service providers, it can also be a double-edged sword, particularly in the case of sensitive applications such as real-time streaming.  Content delivery networks certainly help to maintain high levels of subscriber quality of experience by optimizing delivery, but the network is still a limited and shared resource, so providers need to pay close attention to applications that suddenly explode in popularity.  In particular, network operators need to engineer their network such that it can accommodate abnormal surges of Internet traffic (some predictable, some unpredictable), especially when such events overlap with Internet peak usage periods, in order to safeguard the subscriber experience.

While some providers will reap the rewards of the World Cup’s popularity thanks to consumption-based billing and high subscriber satisfaction, others are struggling with overwhelming data levels and problems with filtering technologies.  Those service providers who have invested in traffic measurement and network policy control tools are in a perfect position to smoothly manage and benefit from this type of network usage scenario – for others, the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa might be just the event to sell them on the value of such tools.