14 DAY TRIAL // The Olympic Games usually make employees forget about work for a few minutes a day, in order to check what the latest competition news brings. Inevitably, when the corporate workforce decides to have a sneak preview at their favorite athletes' performance on a streaming media channel while at work, bandwidth may not cope with the situation.
ScanSafe, a British security solutions company, advises firms to take precautions against the overload of their bandwidth, especially during events of such importance, which mobilize the whole planet. ScanSafe gives the example of the increased number of British employees for whom Internet coverage is the most convenient method to get the latest information on the Games. Over the past week, the Internet audience became unusually large, much more as the British Olympic team had won an important number of medals. Prognostications are optimistic for athletes, but rather grim for the companies that don't have the possibility to support increased traffic.
"Due to the impressive performance of the British Olympic team we expect there will be a significant increase in requests for Olympic-related sites over the next six days and we predict that this will take its toll on companies' bandwidth," warns Director of Product Management Spencer Parker. "If companies do not have sufficient bandwidth then a number of problems can occur including business interruption and a slowdown in performance to critical business LAN applications as well as serious cost implications."
The solution suggested by the security company involves enterprises blocking access to any streaming media, which indeed offer a realistic experience, but can interfere with bandwidth resources necessary for conducting the actual business. "Employees that are not taking part in this Olympic Web surfing may find that their access to legitimate business sites is delayed due to the pressure on the company's bandwidth. Importantly this could have an impact on the company's bottom line." Parker explains.