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Superbowl Resulted in 15% Dip in Internet Traffic
While AT&T Saw 388 GB Across SuperDome Network
According to network gear maker Sandvine, the SuperBowl resulted in a 15% dip in overall network traffic, suggesting that despite the proliferation of tablets and smartphones, the SuperBowl remains a traditional TV dominated affair. Sandvine notes that CBS's Super Bowl stream accounted for over 3% of total network traffic for the evening. At the Superdome, wireless data gluttony was notable, AT&T saying they saw a record 388 GB traversing AT&T’s in-dome network during the game between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers (not including Wi-Fi).
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brianiscool
join:2000-08-16
Tampa, FL

brianiscool

Member

No Bandwidth!

I couldn't reconnect to CBS. The website had to many people accessing it. When I go to the video content it was slowly streaming. I think they didn't expect so many people to watch the game over the internet.

Smith6612
MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY

Smith6612

MVM

Re: No Bandwidth!

Welcome to the days where no one pays their CDN enough to handle traffic?
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx to brianiscool

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to brianiscool
NBC was worse last year.

When will these providers wise up and get the infrastructure rented to deliver the service?

I dunno...maybe use a combo of Akamai, LLNW and Level3 CDNs. Should provide enough capacity.
brianiscool
join:2000-08-16
Tampa, FL

brianiscool

Member

Re: No Bandwidth!

The quality wasn't even HD. It was more like 360p and had to watch it in a small box. Where is the 1080P support with 7 channel audio support?
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

1 recommendation

iansltx

Member

Re: No Bandwidth!

CBS was broadcasting from New Orleans, not Lafayette

Seriously, 1080p with even stereo audio would've been 12 Mbps...per stream. Good luck delivering that over a unicast network, unfortunately.

Smith6612
MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY
·Charter
Ubee EU2251
Ubiquiti UAP-IW-HD
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-AC-HD

1 edit

Smith6612

MVM

Re: No Bandwidth!

This does raise a point though. Flash if that's what they're using does have a built-in Peer to Peer system. Assuming most folks have a router with UPnP turned on or a method is implemented to allow NAT Transversal, couldn't they in theory use a P2P distribution method? I wonder wonder how that would work on a mass scale. Lots of crushed last mile networks but I believe it would help out a lot in a LAN environment so you're not taxing the CDN further. One machine gets the 720p/1080p stream and sends it out to others who do the same on the LAN.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

iansltx

Member

Re: No Bandwidth!

Think of the context of the 'bowl.

On average 17 people, all watching one screen.

Yeah, the only thing P2P would do in this case is destroy the upstream capabilities of any network where there are a number of SB viewers...because most last-mile networks still are lacking in the upstream capacity department (I'm talking raw capacity, not provisioned speed). Never mind the fact that many folks couldn't stream more than 480p on the upload side anyway.

In a situation like this, you want a branching topology, where the data flows in exactly one direction: toward the end user. There will be branches along the way ("repeater nodes") but anyone serving the stream should have enough upstream bandwidth to serve several users (or, you know, 1000...16GB RAM, high-cpu, 2x10G NIC machine). And, for the next ten years or so, the only place where upstream bandwidth will be reliably available in that quantity is a data center.

SpaethCo
Digital Plumber
MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN

SpaethCo to iansltx

MVM

to iansltx
said by iansltx:

When will these providers wise up and get the infrastructure rented to deliver the service?

There is only one company that's able to deliver massive simultaneous streams, and so far Youtube has topped out at 8 million streams.

»allthingsd.com/20121015/ ··· y-means/

With an estimated 108.4 million watching, that means the biggest Internet video distribution service in the world tops out at being able to serve about 7% of that audience.

Unicast video doesn't scale.
iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Austin, TX

1 recommendation

iansltx

Member

Re: No Bandwidth!

That's why you don't deliver video as a unicast stream from anywhere near the Internet's core. That's not the way Akamai does it, that's for sure. Put nodes as deep as possible into ISP networks (as deep as, if not deeper than, Akamai's current nodes/Netflix OpenConnect), then push the stream to them (total bandwidth used: ~20 Mbps per node). Then anycast (or use DNS based resolution, whatever floats your boat) over the last 50-250 miles, depending on how far you are away from an ISP core router.

Oh, and serve everything over UDP, with no ability to fast forward/rewind the stream other than what the client can handle on its own. What you want is a network of dumb pipes piping a data firehose to wherever it needs to go...the smartest piece of the puzzle should be bandwidth detection (serving 360p, 480p, 720p or 1080p), and that should be client-side.

Oh, and don't forget the dual 10 Gbit NICs on the edge nodes. So you can serve 1000 viewers from one system.

Is the scale of this event enormous? Absolutely. Is it a special case that, if handled correctly, requires significantly less hardware per streamer than you'd normally expect? Yep.

amarryat
Verizon FiOS
join:2005-05-02
Marshfield, MA

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And it required Flash. Ruling out IOS and Android.
Kearnstd
Space Elf
Premium Member
join:2002-01-22
Mullica Hill, NJ

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to brianiscool
I think large numbers of viewers are where we see the current flaw in IP video for single high volume events.

Mainly in that with a traditional delivery method of a live event, 100 million people tune into the existing stream. With IP you have 100 million streams to serve. CDNs help this but it still does not remove the inefficiency that is the fact if my neighbor is streaming the event and then I want to watch so I open the stream that is now two streams rather than just joining me onto the existing one.

Makes me wonder how does SDV work? If five homes on a node are watching channel 6 is that five streams of the same channel or is the node smart enough to know that feed is active and just puts the boxes on that existing feed.
Sukunai
Premium Member
join:2008-05-07

Sukunai

Premium Member

Nope

"the SuperBowl resulted in a 15% dip in overall network traffic, suggesting that despite the proliferation of tablets and smartphones, the SuperBowl remains a traditional TV dominated affair."

Nope it proves it is hard to type or tap or use an electronic device when your hands are covered in popcorn oil, pizza gunk or chicken wings sauce.

It proves the game is a social event, and it is probably just likely that most people were likely watching it on limited devices and in groups.

It also establishes that it is not the sort of event you'd expect to find offered on something like Netflix.

Myself, I didn't watch it because I don't watch sports to begin with.
I saw the half time spectacle on YouTube though.
TechnoGeek
join:2013-01-07

TechnoGeek

Member

Re: Nope

Hit the nail on the head.

People were busy watching the game on their old fashioned TV.
openbox9
Premium Member
join:2004-01-26
71144

openbox9

Premium Member

Re: Nope

said by TechnoGeek:

People were busy watching the game on their old fashioned TV.

Along with drinking beer and talking sh!t with their buddies. It is a social engagement, not a solo event to be enjoyed on a screen smaller than 10".

FFH5
Premium Member
join:2002-03-03
Tavistock NJ

FFH5 to TechnoGeek

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to TechnoGeek
said by TechnoGeek:

Hit the nail on the head.

People were busy watching the game on their old fashioned TV.

Super Bowl parties - a tradition for over 40 yrs.

AnonFTW
@reliablehosting.com

AnonFTW

Anon

Power outage

I bet a huge chunk of that usage was due to the prolonged power outage.

NickD
Premium Member
join:2000-11-17
Princeton Junction, NJ

NickD

Premium Member

Re: Power outage

I could imagine that the power outage would also have taken out the cell repeaters and Wi-Fi routers inside the Superdome. Everyone there must have been frantically trying to get information from the outside, placing a strain on the nearest tower.
TexasRebel
join:2011-05-29
Edgewood, TX

TexasRebel

Member

Re: Power outage

Most cell repeaters have their own power trunking.

AnonFTW
@reliablehosting.com

AnonFTW to NickD

Anon

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It didn't: »arstechnica.com/informat ··· er-bowl/
said by Ars :
When the lights went off at the Super Bowl during the big game's infamous power outage, not everything went offline.

The stadium-wide Wi-Fi network kept working—or at least it did in some areas and for part of the outage. But it was a very old-school technology—a landline phone—that saved the day for Andrew Stern, a broadcast engineer for a San Francisco radio station.
zod5000
join:2003-10-21
Victoria, BC

zod5000

Member

I thought CBS' Superbowl Streaming was pretty good.

At least better than I expected. I wanted to try watching the US feed, so I enabled my VPN so I could access the CBS one.

For the most part it was HD (probably 720p) the whole time. Occasionally some frames would drop (making it jittery) or the resolution would temporarily drop.

The fact that those were the only issues I experienced with a sports event streaming in HD was pretty impressive. 10 years ago if anything was streaming live in SD it would jam up and crash. Give it a few more years and it'll be glitch free.
praetoralpha
join:2005-08-06
Pittsburgh, PA

praetoralpha

Member

Have to wonder...

I wonder if that 388 GB exceeded their data cap.
54761437 (banned)
join:2013-01-18
Durham, NC

54761437 (banned)

Member

Re: Have to wonder...

Yeah, considering AT&T is so hard up for data nowadays. I wonder how many miners died extracting those rare bits from the Earth.

skeechan
Ai Otsukaholic
Premium Member
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170

skeechan

Premium Member

Best time to buy stuff off eBay

Got a few great deals toward the end of the game...along with SF losing...life is grand.