BT hails "most connected" Olympics, as video traffic smashes records

UK telco BT smashed several connectivity records during the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, including record delivery levels of daily video traffic and internet traffic on its UK retail broadband network.

The telco designed and delivered a single, integrated communications network (a first for a Summer Games) spanning 94 locations with a critical Games-time service availability of 99.999 per cent.

By comparison, three suppliers were used in Beijing to deliver a network with a far smaller capacity.

BT reports that years of planning went into ensuring that the company fulfilled its role as official communications services partner of London 2012, with BT staff putting in more than a million man hours of work.

Key stats include: over 450 million visits for the official London 2012 website, hosted by BT – four times as many as the Beijing Games website in 2008; more tweets in one day than during the whole of the Beijing Games; and record levels of internet traffic on BT’s UK retail broadband network, reaching an all-time on Sunday 29th July when Team GB won the first of its 65 medals.

During the Olympic Games, daily video traffic increased on average by 19 per cent compared to normal, with Bradley Wiggins winning gold in the cycling time trial being the peak. A BT fibre-based network also delivered TV coverage of the Games from the majority of venues to the International Broadcast Centre for transmission across the world.

Now that the Olympics are over, BT has already begun to pass on its experience and expertise as part of the technology transfer to the Organising Committee and technology partners involved in the next Olympic Games, due to take place in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.