London, 2nd June 2010 – Chris Stening, managing director of Easynet Connect, a leading ISP to small and medium sized businesses, has warned small businesses that their web connections could be brought to a crawl as workers use high bandwidth media streaming services to follow the World Cup via their office internet connections.

Chris Stening advised: “Traditionally, small businesses face a dilemma when deciding whether to allow employees to follow major sporting events during office hours. Whether it is through their PCs, phones or even pocket radios it is likely that fans will find a means of following the football regardless. This year however, small businesses need to consider the technical issue of bandwidth provision with large numbers of fans, especially those who are part of ‘generation Y’ who instinctively look to the internet to follow live events, using their work internet connections to follow the tournament.”

“We’d urge businesses to act now to avoid any reduction in connectivity or productivity. Smaller companies should audit their ongoing and future bandwidth requirements and ensure that their connection can support their most critical applications as well as managing spikes in demand. For example, one person viewing full HD streaming via the BBC’s iPlayer requires 1.5Mbps, so to have five people using this kind of service without impacting upon other services would require a minimum connection of at least 8Mbps without considering the bandwidth required by apps such as VoIP or email.”

Typical bandwidth requirements for live and on-demand streaming services:
Simultaneous per desktop usage (Bits Per Second):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2009/04/bbc_iplayer_goes_hd_adds_highe.html

Bandwidth requirements for typical business applications:
Simultaneous per desktop usage (Bits Per Second):

“The biggest worry is for small businesses that are using consumer broadband packages, or low-end business packages whose connections are generally highly contended, sharing their line with other local businesses or households. This type of connection can leave small businesses completely powerless as their connection is slowed down by other people’s demand for shared bandwidth, whether it is the office next door using streaming or the 4pm traffic spike when children return from school. Having a low contention ratio is important for helping small businesses at the best of times and especially at times of high demand. This said, high bandwidth connections such as 100Mbps fibre are more affordable and accessible to small businesses than ever before, leaving them free to make the most of the World Cup without interrupting their connectivity.”

“And it isn’t just the productivity of those workers who want to follow the tournament that need to be considered. Those who aren’t following the football also risk having their bandwidth throttled by their football loving colleagues. As well as using live and catch up services such as the BBC’s iPlayer, many workers may also connect smartphones, netbooks or even iPads to corporate wi-fi networks in order to follow the football, increasing the strain on bandwidth even further. The big challenge is to make sure that employees’ use of high bandwidth services doesn’t impinge on the internet capacity needed to keep business running as usual.”

“Whilst larger businesses with managed, international networks may go unaffected, smaller businesses are likely to be the hardest hit. We also know from our recent research that over half of small businesses plan to take their most critical functions such as email, remote data access or storage online, using cloud computing, making their connectivity even more crucial. In 2008, a third of small businesses told us they had no formal policies over personal internet usage, essentially leaving their web connections open to abuse.”

Key Recommendations from Chris Stening, managing director, Easynet Connect:

• Early kick-off. Planning ahead will help you avoid paying the price of being caught by surprise and having productivity suffer as a result. It also means that businesses can avoid making reactionary decisions and measures once the football is underway.
• Match analysis. Speak with your ISP to get a full picture of how much bandwidth your business requires on a day-to-day basis as well as during peak times. This should give you an idea of the impact of staff using web streaming services upon other services, upon which you can base your decisions. It will also give you a picture of how heavily your business relies upon bandwidth.

• Team selection. It may be that your business is in need of increased capacity anyway, in which case it may be a good time to upgrade your current package, switch provider or to set up an extra line, such as an ADSL connection to carry low priority web traffic. If so, consider all of the technologies and packages available and make sure the option you choose is fully suited to your business and has the right back up options and service level agreements in place – it may be better value than you might think.
• Substitutions. There are technologies which can help businesses needing to manage their bandwidth. For example, MPLS technology lets businesses prioritise bandwidth for particular types of traffic, protecting the data transfer to the applications which your business relies upon.
• Rules of fair play. Web usage policies are far from a case of one policy fitting all and are completely dependent upon your staff and your business. Business should remember however that many people do still rely on their work as their primary means of accessing the web and the tools that it can provide. With the popularity of smartphones it is likely however that workers will find ways to follow the action regardless.
• The off-line rule. Don’t forget that you can keep up to speed with the football via traditional means without using up any bandwidth. Buying radios or even a TV for the office can be seen as a real treat and morale booster for your workers. Sensible usage will be advised but it is a sure-fire way of protecting your connection.
• Extra time. Consider using flexible working as a means to allow employees to make up for time spent watching matches out of the office. This also avoids the prospect of claiming sick leave in order to watch games.

Key Facts/Highlights:
Key business hours fixtures

• Spain V Switzerland, 16th June, 3pm
• Germany V Serbia, 18th June, 12.30pm
• France V South Africa, 22nd June, 3pm
• Italy V Slovakia, 24th June, 3pm
• Slovenia V England, 23rd June, 3pm 

Official FIFA World Cup fixture list http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/index.html

Relevant Links

• Download Easynet Connect’s report into cloud computing adoption among SMEs, Could 2010 be the year SMEs fully embrace cloud computing?: http://www.easynetconnect.net/industry-insight/whitepapers-and-reports/cloud-computing-2010.aspx
• Download the recent report, Are UK SMEs gearing up for growth? here: http://www.easynetconnect.net/industry-insight/whitepapers-and-reports/gearing-up-for-growth.aspx

Tags

• SME, Easynet Connect, Fibre, broadband, economic growth, Internet bandwidth, cloud computing, online business, world cup, media streaming

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• Join us on LinkedIn: Easynet Connect
• Visit our YouTube channel: Easynet Connect

Notes to editors
According to research amongst 345 small businesses carried out on behalf of Easynet Connect by Quocirca http://www.easynetconnect.net/news/soaring-across-the-regions-optimised.aspx

*Per email when sending small sized emails (10-25KB)
**Per email when sending medium emails (25-100KB)
***Per email when sending ‘large’ (100-500KB) often including attachments. Please note that many emails with attachments will greatly exceed this figure.
****Based upon the recommended minimum bandwidth requirements for using the IM, video, VoIP and desktop sharing capabilities of Cisco WebEx Connect. http://www.webex.com/webexconnect/orgadmin/help/index.htm?toc.htm?17161.htm

About Easynet Connect 

Easynet Connect is a leading provider of quality connectivity and internet access for small to medium size businesses.

Established in 1994 and part of BSkyB Group, Easynet Connect is one of the largest networks in the UK with 6030km of fibre and last mile access to more than 70% of UK businesses via a network of more than 1,200 unbundled exchanges.

Easynet Connect is the first ISP to launch a reliable fixed-rate 100 Mbps fibre service across London, as well as being the first in the UK to have provided DSL services over an unbundled local loop and has pioneered managed LLU services for business.  Easynet Connect’s services range from business class ADSL and SDSL through to high-quality, leased line equivalent and Ethernet based services. Our SDSL coverage is currently the most extensive in the UK.

We offer a range of uncontended symmetrical speeds up to 1Gbps, all backed by 24x7 UK-based network monitoring and customer support, 99.9% Service Level Guarantees and an enviable 95% First Time Fix rate.

Our 20-day installation pledge for some of our EtherStream and SureStream products is the shortest of the few installation pledges currently available on the market.   

For more information visit www.easynetconnect.net or call 0800 053 1777

Media enquiries contact Linda Harris, linda.harris@uk.easynet.net 020 7032 5073 or George Wright or Joseph Thomas, easynetconnect@brands2life.com on 0207 592 1200.