Olympic Streaming Numbers Show Live Streaming A Success

Internet Streaming appears to be going without any issues thus far.

It sure looks like the idea of live Internet Streaming of the 2012 London Olympic games has turned out to be a big success for NBC. With the expected large numbers of people who would be watching the Olympics live on their computers, tablets or mobile phones, the total volume would be huge. But at the half way point of the Olympics, we are not hearing of any problems with streaming video from any event. And this seems to prove that the Internet can handle the load when called upon to provide large streams of video on demand.

And the concerns about testing the Internet have largely turned out to be a non-issue thus far. Even the minor issues which were encountered during cycling where Tweets along the course disrupted coverage seem to have been brushed aside and not considered to be a big problem. That has been the only negative report involving a mobile network to this point in time. Given that, things are looking very good.

The reports of over 75 million streaming videos is a testimony to the preparation which has been done for the Olympics and the ability to stream video, live or otherwise. I have been watching video of Equestrian events this evening from earlier in the week because it conflicted with live events I was watching. With all the full events you can watch, it is a great way to watch the Olympics. One of the great things I like about watching it this way is that I can bypass the evening presentation from NBC where they cut out parts of the sports to fit things into the limited time. I get to see everything.

All of this capability is the result of two companies which were hired to make sure that the streaming of video went off without any problems. And they have proven they were up for that task. Limelight Networks which is located in Tempe, Arizona has been involved with streaming video at the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijiing. With that history, they were well prepared to handle the 2012 Olympic Games in London. They have a global network of data centers which are working to stream video using a number of different technologies. The other company involved is Akamai, which has been involved in handling some of the support for major broadcasters from the Olympics.

The volume of numbers coming out from this are phenomenal. In a Bleacher Report, they have combed through the available numbers and provided insight into the make up of people viewing the Olympics via non-traditional methods. Based on what they have analyzed and are reporting, the Olympics are going to continue to become a portable sport to watch. So as long as the streaming of videos can be handled by the Internet and NBC continues to allow that, we are going to see more people watching the Olympics on mobile devices.

The next Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will have even more video available to a much wider audience we hope. Here in the US, you have to be a Comcast customer to get to watch all of the available coverage, either live or the full events at a later time. We can hope that as more people cut the cord, the next Olympics will not be restricted for non-traditional viewing as it has here in the US. It may not, as NBC will again be broadcasting the 2016 Olympics. But, we do know that the Internet can handle the load as they have demonstrated thus far. And concerns for future streaming of videos for the Olympics are no longer justified given the past week.

Olympic Internet Traffic Increases Disrupts Coverage

Tweeting in London overloads one mobile network at Olympics.

The Olympics games has presented some challenges and with those has seen a large influx of people using mobile technology to get the word out at events. And one of the most used is going to be that of Tweets, those short bursts of text which are shared with the world over Twitter. After that comes Facebook and other Social Media activities where people share what is going on in their lives at the moment. And with the Olympics, we would expect to see a rather significant increase in those activities.

And that is exactly what has happened. There were a reported 9.66 million tweets from the actual start of the opening ceremony until the end of the NBC delayed viewing. While a decent number of those Tweets were from the US, it gives you an idea of just how popular Twitter is going to be during the Olympics. We had talked about the Olympics being the first true test for Internet Streaming, but was dealing with the streaming of video. It did not take into account all the Tweeting that was going to be taking place. And that is on top of the streaming video.

Since Tweets are short in nature, you might not think it would impact mobile networks. And you would be wrong in making that assumptions. There are reports of impacts to the Men's and Women's cycling events. This was for the coverage which was relying on GPS signals to be sent over a wireless network back to the broadcast booths. The numerous Tweets during the race placed too much of a strain on the wireless network for broadcasters.

In the coverage, they rely on GPS transmissions over the wireless networks from GPS devices on the cyclists which show position. It also shows how far apart the cyclists are from each other for timing. So, without those signals, those who were broadcasting the race where guessing using their own watches rather than the information collected and presented by computers. So, after the first 2 days of the Olympics, they are already having problems with the Internet and wireless streaming or Tweets.

One official with the Olympics said that those lining the cyclists route where sending hundreds of thousands of Tweets and would like people to not send so many.

"Of course, if you want to send something, we are not going to say 'Don't, you can't do it', and we would certainly never prevent people," he said. "It's just - if it's not an urgent, urgent one, please kind of take it easy."

It is unclear as to exactly what an urgent Tweet is as compared to a not urgent Tweet determination is. We will leave that for others to try and figure out. I am not sure anyone is going to be able to make that determination. All Tweets are deemed as urgent when you are at the Olympics.

There were years to plan for the Olympics with new wireless capabilities being added for this very thing. There has been a Social Media commitment to support Twitter and Facebook, so one would believe there would be enough wireless coverage to handle anything people could throw at it. The live streaming aspect of the Olympics was very recent and appears not really matter as much as what we have seen in the past few days.

How many other events at the Olympics which depend on GPS which might be interrupted by high volumes of Tweets is unknown. The only thing we can hope for at this point is that the current handling of wireless mobile devices doing Tweets is handled far better in the coming days. This high volume test would have appeared to have failed when it came to the cyclists and GPS tracking.

So far, this is not a good sign for being able to handle high volumes of wireless traffic at the Olympics.

Olympics To Be First True Test Of High Volume Internet Streaming

NBC to provide live stream for all events at Olympics.

We have never really had a high volume stress test of what the Internet can handle in terms of streaming video. Sure, there are large volumes of people who watch YouTube, there favorite show or a movie via the Internet. But these are spread out over time and there has never been a concentrated request for streaming video that can test the unknown bounds of what the Internet is cable of handling. That is until this week when the Olympics kicks off.

The Olympics are going to be live streaming all 302 events in all 32 sports over the Internet. If ever there was going to be some stress test of the limits of what the Internet can carry, this will be it. It is going to be the first time that all of the Olympic coverage will be available live. That means you can watch it on your smart phone, your tablet or your computer. And as much as you can possibly handle as it will all be available live.

This will be unprecedented in the sheer volume of video being streamed around the world in a 2 week period. And it will surely be the single test of exactly how much video can be handled at one time. Around the world, there could well be 14 hours of streaming content from the Olympics. It will be that number here in the US in TV's, computers, tablets and smart phones. And it is the Internet connections which are to be tested.

It does appear that the wireless carriers here in the US saw this coming a while back even though NBC recently announced they would be providing all the live coverage via their "NBC Olympics Application" which will operate on iOS devices and Android mobile devices. And that is going to place a burden on wireless carriers, especially here in the US. And you wondered why the US wireless carriers have been changing their data plans for the past several years to eliminate unlimited data.

Over the past 2 years, they have been slowly making changes to cut back on the amount of wireless data traffic you can consume from your wireless carrier. The wireless carriers knew that at some point, video streaming of live events was going to take off. They got an idea from back at the Winter Olympics where they streamed over 400 hours of the events live on NBC. With the summer Olympics, they are going to be live streaming over 4500 hours of live video feeds to watch.

Much has changed since the winter Olympics and there are a whole lot more mobile devices in the hands of people. More smart phones and far more tablets than 2 years ago and with many more devices, there are many more to consume the live feeds over wireless connections. And the wireless carriers have thought through what it might mean to them if they did not try and throttle back some of the extremely high volumes of data.

The one way to accomplish that was to significantly reduce what people can normally get. Then when the Olympics comes alone, you are less likely to consume high volumes of data watching the Olympics. And if you are willing to do that, they are going to get you with the overage fees for exceeding your plan. They were pretty smart.

For Internet providers, they are going to see an increase in the amount of traffic to a much higher degree. For Comcast customers using the Internet to watch the Olympics, there may be issues with much higher traffic. I have seen some issues with things hanging up periodically over past few weeks where throughput does degrade. I am hoping that was because Comcast was making preparations for better throughput starting on Friday.

All the Internet providers are going to be experiencing much higher volumes of traffic for the next few weeks. And this can be considered a test for handling higher capacity along with delivering consistent video streams. There has been talk for years about changes for content viewing from traditional subscription TV to now getting it over the Internet.

The Olympic streaming over the Internet may launch a new way of getting programming in the future.

NFC Mobile Payments Too Slow For London And Olympics

London Underground minimum performance not meet by Mobile Wallet.

We have been waiting for NFC payments to take hold this year with smart phones. Last year, estimates had them taking off by the middle of the year here in the US as more smart phones had the NFC capabilities included. The Galaxy S3 from Verizon does not have Google Wallet as Verizon is working on their own implementation for NFC payments. All of this makes one wonder how much longer it is going to be before things get organized and there is widespread usage of NFC payments. So, here we are past the mid-point in 2012 and we are not hearing much about wide scale adopting of NFC payments.

What is the problem? Is this a Fragmentation problem because of all the competing groups and methods for processing payments? It could be, but there may be some other problems involved with getting things implemented. Things for the future are looking better, but that is still in the future. Recent discussions at the TechCrunch Disrupt New York event had people talking about the future.

"NFC is coming. It's a wave," he said. "But there are a lot of hitches in use cases. People can get a discount from an ad. That's much more simple. But when NFC is in an environment where where 2 seconds make or break the transaction at the merchant level, there are still issues that need to be overcome." In other words, while NFC sounds like the future of mobile payments, and probably is the future of mobile payments, don't throw out your credit cards just yet.

And it is that 2 seconds for make or break which seems to have it be a breaking for the future of NFC for some. With the coming Olympics in London, there was a lot of hope for taking advantage of NFC payments there. But, one group has decided to not use NFC payments. In the London Underground, which is often referred to as "The Tube", they have set the acceptable threshold of processing an NFC transaction at 500 milliseconds. Anything longer than that will slow the movement of people through the payment gates.

And it is because it takes longer than 500 milliseconds to process the mobile payment, they have decided to not use NFC payments in the London Underground. This is a big deal and points out some of the problems with the NFC processing of payments. People expect to Tap and Go, but with NFC, it has turned into Tap, Hold and then Go. The end result is that it slows the process down when you are trying to move large volumes of people.

In the case of the coming Olympics in London, anything that impedes the rapid flow of people onto the rails is not acceptable. And it is those kinds of things which appear to be slowing the acceptance of NFC payments for things like mass transit. There needs to be significant improvement in the process to gain wider acceptance.

If you have to do more than "Tap and Go" to make purchases, people are going to look at alternatives. People may use NFC to purchase a card which has amounts added to it to make purchases. And that is because the "Tap and Go" features currently work best with a card. That is what the London Underground is relying on for their Oyster payment card, which is widely used in the London Underground. Until NFC can break the 500 millisecond barrier, acceptance and usage is going to slower than some had hoped.