U.K. prepares for first live broadband broadcasts of World Cup

When the FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 kicks-off Friday, IT departments and office managers in the U.K. will be bracing for potential disruptions due to heavy work-time online viewing of the most watched sporting event in the world.

The BBC described the launch of its broadband broadcasting of the event as enabling real-time viewing of every match:

Our audiences now expect to get BBC Sport on television, on radio and online – and the World Cup on broadband is our biggest commitment yet to bringing people major events where and when they want them.

You can watch the World Cup from the BBC at home on TV – or listen in the car on your radio – and now also see full live coverage on your PC…We know a lot of online viewing is done in the office, so we suspect this will allow people both to do their job and to keep up with the very latest action from Germany.

Network management firm Packeteer warns, however:

Businesses need to ensure that mechanisms are put in place to identify and control non-sanctioned internet traffic in order to maintain employee productivity, protect the network from overload, and prioritise bandwidth for the most critical applications to guarantee performance during working hours…Managers can establish flexible policies to allow employees to watch matches at non-critical times.

For a related story see: "Mediazone pioneers broadband sports braodcasting with Wimbledon live and on-demand coverage"

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