'Insatiable demand' for streaming video puts pressure on providers

Just as enterprise network managers brace for the flood of bandwidth-consuming content stemming from the NCAA men's basketball tournament, content delivery providers put in a significant amount of time preparing to meet the meteoric rise in demand.

Scott Boyarski, vice president of innovation for Turner Sports Media, whose jointly sponsored NCAA March Madness Live online streaming service saw 26.7 million unparalleled visits and 10.3 million hours of streaming video in the first three rounds of the 2011 tournament, says initial preparations for this year's tournament began in late November. As much work goes into supporting this two-week event as does for the launch of the entire regular season, Boyarski says.

Wave that's coming up that you just see building

"It's more of a wave that's coming up that you just see building and building," Wheaton says. "People are getting used to access to that. And at the time on top of that, add more broadband, add more connectivity through the wireless networks, add more devices like the iPhone and the iPad, and all of a sudden you just see more and more people beginning to watch it on screens [of all types]."

Wheaton points to the 2010 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, in which more than 5% of viewers for coinciding games for the U.S. and England watched online, as a turning point for this trend. Since at the time, the number of smartphone owners in the U.S. has near doubled - from 53.4 million in July 2010 to 101.3 million in January 2012, according to comScore - during growing social networks have made it easier for consumers to share links to online streaming services.

The primaries going on leading up to the elections

"This year we have the primaries going on leading up to the elections," he says. "At any moment, something's going to break on the Internet and in the news cycle that consumes a lot of bandwidth because a lot of people want to see what's going on."

In this regard, there is no end in sight. Flexibility and high performance of streaming services will only become more important in the then few years, as smartphones, tablets and internet-enabled televisions find their way into the hands of moreover consumers, Wheaton says.

"As you look out four to five years, what we do know is that the volume of video that people will watch over IP is going to explode," Wheaton says. "So that's going to be a big game changer. Now that the television, the PC, the tablet and the phone all have ubiquitous access and the ability to have continuity between devices as you access that video, that's going to in effect drive consumption up for consumers."

Colin Neagle covers Microsoft security and network management for Network World. Keep up with his blog: Rated Critical, follow him on Twitter: @ntwrkwrldneagle. Colin's email is cneagle@nww.com.