Pages

10 November, 2016

Streaming records shattered during coverage of the US presidential elections in 2016

Akamai Technologies, the global content delivery network (CDN) service provider, has announced that media coverage of the US presidential election was the largest single news event the company has ever helped its customers deliver. 

Live video streaming traffic specific to the election peaked at 7.5 Tbps on the Akamai Platform shortly before midnight Eastern time on Tuesday, November 8 (1pm November 8 in Singapore), eclipsing previous news events, and placing it among the highest video traffic peaks for any individual event delivered by Akamai.

“In what has already been a record-setting year for live streaming with the European soccer finals, Rio and the recent presidential debates, Akamai has again helped our customers deliver unprecedented levels of online video with (November 8's) election coverage,” said Bill Wheaton, Executive VP and GM of Media at Akamai. “Not only are more people watching online in general, they’re watching at higher quality, which contributes to the increasingly higher peaks in traffic that we’re observing.”

The company also launched a dedicated facility for the election event, Akamai’s Broadcast Operations Control Center (BOCC), and said customers took advantage of the facility, technical staff and services for real-time support and deep operational insight that is critical to successfully delivering live events.

From an historical perspective, Election Day traffic on Akamai in 2004 peaked at a relatively modest 21 Gbps. The 2009 Obama inauguration reached 1.1 Tbps and the royal wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, to Catherine Middleton in 2011 hit 1.3 Tbps. In contrast, the first 2016 Presidential debate peaked at 4.4 Tbps in September. 

No comments:

Post a Comment