Internet Video Hits New Peak

Internet live broadcasting traffic in the U.S. hit a record peak this week with the President Obama’s speech. Millions of cubicle employees watched (or tried to) online video of the inauguration ceremonies. It was the most-viewed live video event in Internet history.

CNN.com fed 1.3 million live streams simultaneously. Over the nine-hours ceremony, CNN provided more than 21.3 million video stream. During the Election Day, it had ‘only’ 5.3 million streams.

CDN provider Akamai worked with New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Viacom and other outlets, reported a record-breaking day, feeding up seven million video streams at one time.

Despite these impressive raw figures, many people were unable to access video, and many Websites –we tried CNN, NYT, ABC, NBC- had trouble keeping up the overwhelming demand. Those frustrated users turn to old television to watch the speech.

CNN posted a note to visitors saying they were in line to receive a working stream.

However, CNN and other media explained that the viewing troubles may have been more a result of the limited Internet capacity coming to offices and houses, rather than a lack of overall bandwidth from the media companies.

The viewing troubles may have been more a result of the limited Internet capacity coming to offices and houses, rather than a lack of overall bandwidth from the media companies, according to Mr. Woodcock.

“The United States continues to suffer from less-than-robust bandwidth, due to inadequate government attention and limited competition between Internet service providers like AT&T and Comcast”, said an analyst in the New York Times. President Obama has acknowledged the problem.