Networks need to prepare for Olympics data boom, says Everything Everywhere

Sylvan Thevanot, marketing director for UK network provider Everything Everywhere has called on all fixed line and mobile operators to get their networks in order in time for the London Olympics due to be held in the UK capital during July and August 2012.

“We hope that they will get their act together for the Olympics, as there will be lots of iPlayer and catch up services being used”, Thevanot told the audience at his keynote on the opening day of the Broadband Traffic Mangament event in London.

Everything Everywhere is the UK’s largest mobile operator, and was formed on 1 July 2010 after France Telecom and Deutsche Telecom joined their respective T-Mobile and Orange UK operations. It currently offers fixed line ADSL services in the UK through Orange Broadband.

Thevanot also revealed that said that current average usage on its fixed line service was currently around 17GB per user per month and that there was a need for operators to optimise the delivery of traffic on the network due to the increasing costs of delivering services. “The cost of delivery used to drop in reverse proportion, which meant we could protect our margins, however now it’s flattening in a way that now the margins are being squeezed. That’s why it is imperative that we find ways of managing the traffic.”

He also said that there are also now as many as between six and eight network devices in every UK home, emphasising the need to increase the average speed of broadband delivery in the country, which Thevanot said was between 5-6Mb/s. He admitted that this will be increased more through FTTP connections than improvements to copper connections.