Will World Cup Streaming Cause Internet Meltdown? 312
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."
Common Sense (Score:2)
Re:Common Sense (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Common Sense (Score:2)
Re:Common Sense (Score:3, Insightful)
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 c
Re:Common Sense (Score:2, Interesting)
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 so
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Common Sense (Score:2)
Re:Common Sense (Score:2)
Re:Common Sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, considering the only guy quoted by both articles is a manager for a company that sells packet shaping systems...
Re:Common Sense (Score:2)
Not astroturfing, but maybe bad journalism (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Common Sense (Score:3, Informative)
What a world we live in! (Score:2)
Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nope (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Nope (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe not for you...
-g.
Re:Nope (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, the internet won't 'melt down', but this will surely be the biggest test for the BBC's live video streaming abilities so far.
Re:Nope (Score:3, Funny)
"World Cup event will cause shortage on electromagnetic waves, due to the high amount of TV devices turned on at the same time.
The massive number of TVs turned on for the upcoming World Cup will cause electromagnetic waves to be drained by billions of antennas worldwide. Specialists affirm that the huge demand for signal will suck up the waves from the transmitting antennas in the TV stations, causing an overload on those towers. 'Those circuits will eventually burn to ashes' says
Re:Nope (Score:2)
Besides, it's the internet. It can take it.
Business idea (Score:2)
No (Score:2, Funny)
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:2)
As for actually getting a ticket you are joking right? Do you think people can just nip over to Germany for the game, buy a ticket, watch the game and get back in time for tea?
Re:No (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:2)
Two words: content filter.
Seriously, similar problems were predicted recently with the online streaming of "March Madness" (the national college basketball tournament) here in the USA. As a result, I got approval from Human Resources to pre-emptively block CBS Sports during tournament games. Apparently I wasn't the only network manager one who did this... many of my non-IT friends who work elsewhere called me asking "Hey, CBS is blocked, how can I get around this?"
The end result: networks didn't melt, and
Re:No (Score:2)
Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:4, Funny)
Nope (Score:2)
Re:Nope (Score:2)
Misleading titles (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether such a meltdown is even possible is another question entirely, but one not covered by these articles.
Purely as an aside... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Misleading titles (Score:2)
But really, are we gonna see one of these articles during every major sporting event now?
Re:Misleading titles (Score:4, Interesting)
It comes down to:
1. Lose 2 hours of work when half the office watches the match on TV
2. Lose 8 hours of work when half the office call in sick to watch the match in the pub/at home
3. Lose your entire internet connection when half the office streams it from the BBC.
(1) is the better option really.
Re:Misleading titles (Score:3, Interesting)
4. No TVs, no streaming, and employees who call in sick are fired and replaced by cheap immigrants.
I'm not joking either.
Re:Misleading titles (Score:2)
Let's think logically.
First, I doubt Internet is capable of "meltdown", but apaprently it's capable of "blowing concerns out of proportions" on various popular blogs and news sites.
If a pipe get
soccer (football) != porn (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:soccer (football) != porn (Score:5, Funny)
Re:soccer (football) != porn (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:soccer (football) != porn (Score:2)
Re:soccer (football) != porn (Score:2)
Bit Torrent for streaming (Score:2)
That being the case, what's a possible way to lessen the load on streaming servers, and to distribute the file transfers onto networks and users who are interested in the content they are downloading or helping to distribute?
Re:Bit Torrent for streaming (Score:2)
Regular Internet streaming has ~10 seconds of buffering; would it make that much of a difference if P2P streaming had 30-60 seconds of buffering?
There is a lot of academic research about P2P live streaming: Yoid, ESM, TMesh, SplitStream, Bullet, Chainsaw, etc. A company call
BBC Coverage Online (Score:4, Informative)
Multicast is perfect for this kind of situation, and I don't think we'll see a 'meltdown' because of it.
Unlikely (Score:4, Interesting)
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!
Re:Unlikely (Score:4, Interesting)
As popular as football is, I doubt that you'll get that many people all hammering the internet simultaneously to create a full meltdown.
Maybe, but where? WHERE?! (Score:2)
Snif...
* That's soccercrazy Italy, for god's sake!!
The Internet was designed to withstand nuclear war (Score:2, Funny)
I think it will be fine.
--
Music should be free [w33t.com]
Irony (Score:2)
If there is a meltdown then the streaming servers cannot handle the user requests.
No (Score:2)
Hell, pirated copies of the World Cup games are going to operate like this anyway. I'm sure The Pirate Bay has many busy days in front of it.
Not even close to a meltdown this time (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not even close to a meltdown this time (Score:2)
Re:Not even close to a meltdown this time (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is sad really, considering your team is currently ranked 5th in the world by FIFA. Instead you go mad over "world series" of games that noone else plays.
Web Streaming Slowdown (Score:3, Informative)
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!
Imminent death of the Net predicted (Score:2)
It's been predicted for decades, whenever the latest new/big even comes along.
What about torrents? (Score:2)
But then again, bittorrent is kinda distributed all over the world, and without smart mirrors streaming the world cup data this might saturate key p
Re:What about torrents? (Score:2)
where is the live worldcup streaming? (Score:2)
Re:where is the live worldcup streaming? (Score:2, Interesting)
I bought my first TV and got cable just to be able to watch the World Cup this year. It's a great event.
Yes (Score:5, Funny)
Yes. But that's OK because Slashdot looks like crap now and nobody is going to use it. It should all balance out.
Use the new FAX interface (Score:2)
Use multicast and be happy... (Score:2)
Re:Use multicast and be happy... (Score:2)
Its called TV
This really scares me... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Not in the US (Score:2)
Re:Not in the US (Score:2)
> even what the World Cup is.
Some of us do know but still don't care. One pro sport is just as boring and pointless as another.
Re:Not in the US (Score:2)
Well whaddya know! They're back again [bbc.co.uk], and looking good for a nice early knockout by Brazil or Italy [wikipedia.org], one of which will also knock us [bbc.co.uk] out if we somehow scrape our way to the semis.
With two of the world's major internet countries making such an early exit, I'd be rejecting the idea of a meltdown even if it wasn't just a piece of ignorant sensationalist trash.
Broadcast (Score:2)
FYI, for people in North America, XM Satellite Radio is broadcasting Worl
stress test (Score:2)
Hell Yeah! (Score:2, Funny)
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
Maybe company lines are more of a problem. (Score:2)
Today it is not much of a problem, although I can imagine that the world cup could cause problems. Tour de France does generate a lot of streaming traffic because that also is going on during work hours.
Boy, if only we had some special backbone (Score:2)
I had a feeling the telecom industry probably had something to do with the article until I read it was written by someone with ties to a packet shaping company.
Pay For This and They Give You That (Score:2)
Not as snappy a headline. I'd make a better one if telcos paid me the marketing budget that produced the headline on this story.
How to survive an Internet meltdown (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Proxies / Splitting (Score:2)
There were a couple of problems with that. First of all that it was hard to find a business models that woul
We werent utilizing the goddam bandwith to full ? (Score:2)
So what are these telcos trying to say - that they were guaranteeing us bandwidth they would never be able to provide ?
Was it "sweet profits", "easy money", "yet-not-defined scam" ?
multicast (Score:2)
Thus providing nice bandwidth friendly video.....meanwhile back in the real world
Didn't Happen Last Time. Won't Happen This Time. (Score:2)
I would love to stream the WC into my box at work. We have the T3 bandwidth for it, too. But I couldn't do it four years ago, and I won't be able to this year either. The teevee/video rights to geographical areas are sold by FIFA for megabucks to the various networks world wide, and the @#$R%T^ swine just don't allow any internet streaming. Last time, I found one feed streaming video, with commentary in Portugese (who cares,eh?), but it was pretty bad to start with and after a couple of days lots of folk
The 2005 Melbourne Cup... (Score:2)
The World Cup is a lot larger then the Melbourne Cup (one bloody so-called 'legendary' horse aside - forget its name), so unless streaming si
Re:I propose a meltdown test... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well they play with a ball , using their foot, therefore: Football. Why the quotes and the ahem*?
Re:I propose a meltdown test... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I propose a meltdown test... (Score:2)
In the rest of the world... (Score:4, Funny)
In the US, Soccer plays you! At least, things are heading that direction.
Re:I propose a meltdown test... (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously it is the former needs the quotes to avoid confusion, rather than the latter, which is much more widespread and popular.
Ah. Yes. Hmmm. (Score:2, Informative)
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 st
Re:Ah. Yes. Hmmm. (Score:4, Informative)
That's a myth. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_football [wikipedia.org].
Jason
Well, they only say... (Score:2)
Of course, that last part may explain why I never did well on the statis
Re:Well, they only say... (Score:2)
Jason.
Re:I propose a meltdown test... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:2)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Errr QWZX (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Errr QWZX (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Errr QWZX (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Errr QWZX (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Errr QWZX (Score:2, Insightful)
Basically I think americans still need a couple of light-years before they comprehend that there can be a sport that teams can actually tie up, and there is no winner, leader, best team, Fuhrer to venerate and buy T-shirts from... It kind of damages their prepackaged perception of the importance of leadership and wi
Re:Multicast IP (Score:2)
Re:Multicast IP (Score:2)
Intermediate routers never see more than one stream of it. It is the routers/switches on the ends that see the load, but they should be able to handle it without a problem.
Re:Please forgive me... (Score:3, Funny)