If you like sport as we do at Pro Drive you may have a few fans wanting the chance to watch the impending World Cup in Brazil or The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow live whilst working on daily business activities. This could have an undesirable impact on your IT networks with live streaming known to seriously affect the speed of networks.
So we’ve got thinking caps on and have come up with a few suggestions on ways you can keep your business IT systems running during major sporting events.
To stream or not to stream?
The very first thing we must stress is that any kind of streaming live or otherwise will have an effect on your internet bandwidth. So, in short, to stream you need good bandwidth, in fact the higher the bandwidth allowance the better it will cope with the demand. Live streaming can easily impact business critical services, so technically limiting the bandwidth for streaming will reduce the negative consequences.
So what can you do about it?
Buying a TV or dedicating a single computer
It might sound like a ridiculous concept but believe it or not most of the sports you are going to want to likely watch are being broadcast to the BBC or ITV. You might find it simpler in an open plan office to offer a TV or a dedicated computer to show the games on because you are going to want to watch the same thing.
Follow on from the success from the Olympics we have a strong suspicion that The Commonwealth Games will be have the biggest affect especially when you consider that the games live action gets under way at 09:00 and continues throughout the day until 22:30 So as you can immediately tell this will be something of a major strain on your bandwidth especially as you will be able to select from up to 17 different events.
Streaming via the BBC in HD will use up to 2.8 MB/s – the problem becomes very apparent when several members of a team use this service concurrently. Limiting the streaming to one PC suddenly makes a lot of sense.
Rota staff to allow them to watch the sport they want
We have all had to adhere to rotas throughout our lives in one form or another. Rotas not only minimize the affect the streams are having on your bandwidth but also help ensure you maintain productivity amongst your staff
Allow staff to use their own mobile devices and data
To avoid your businesses bandwidth being consumed by sports events you could always offer the choice to the staff to use their own mobile data. Everyone has a data plan and if your staff have business / personal mobile data packages with unlimited data package the, why not use that?
Ban sport from office hours
This is not a very popular choice when it comes to sports but it is a valid one. A great number of business have reported that throughout the Olympics and other major sporting events they had seen a massive decline of attention from the staff when they allowed them to stream the events. However even more companies at this time also reported to have had the lowest morale and a negative atmosphere when streaming like this was banned. Preventing, or just limiting, viewing of streaming video is possible to enforce through technical systems.
Get assistance
We at Pro Drive would we willing to offer you our help and advice if you need assistance understanding what you can or cannot do when it comes to streaming sports at your offices. We would be able to understand your capabilities and help you put in place the steps and guides to make the best decisions for your business.
