Feature Article

Free eNews Subscription>>
August 01, 2012

Mobility and Social Media Win Olympic Gold

So far the 2012 Olympics have provided some excellent sport – from U.S. gymnastics team gold to swimmer Michael Phelps showing his new and sometimes fallible (by which we mean normal as opposed to superhuman) “elder statesman” status, to a young and perhaps amazing new Chinese female swimmer. Alas, the British have yet to win gold, having missed what was supposed to be its golden chance to do so in several cycling events.

Throughout the games to date a new gold medal winner has emerged - a combined team featuring mobility and social networking. How do we know this team is delivering a gold medal performance?

Through the courtesy of Allot Communications, a company focused on service optimization and revenue generation solutions for fixed and mobile data networks. The company has been monitoring data traffic statistics collected from both mobile and fixed networks around the globe since the opening Olympic ceremonies on Friday evening, July 27th, and will continue its monitoring throughout the games. To establish a usage baseline, Allot began monitoring global traffic weeks before the event. To mark the event, Allot released a special edition of protocol signatures with unique support for identifying traffic directly related to popular sources of online sports coverage such as ESPN, CNTV (China) and BBC Sports.

Today, Allot announced the first edition of its new Olympics Report, which shows the results of tracking Olympics broadband traffic volumes and usage patterns to date. This is the first time the Olympics are being streamed live over the Internet. As a result, people can watch and discuss the games anywhere, anytime via mobile access devices.

Key Findings in the Allot MobileTrendsReport

  • Instant Messaging increased 182 percent on average during the opening ceremony; WhatsApp was out front with a massive 430 percent increase
  • Online video increased and peaked at 217 percent during the first official day of competition, with dedicated sites such as ESPN, BBC Sports and CNTV leading the pack
  • Facebook traffic posted an 87 percent increase during the first two days of the games
  • YouTube traffic hit 40 percent during the first official day of competition

“Mobile access to the Internet has become part of the online lifestyle for billions of people, and they are taking full advantage of the online content available,” said Jonathon Gordon, director of marketing, Allot Communications. “Allot enables fixed and mobile broadband service providers to gain a competitive edge by monitoring and managing the real-time impact of the Olympic Games on their networks.”

Results and analysis of broadband usage are posted in an Olympic Online Edition of Allot MobileTrends Report.

Mobile Olympic Gold Mayhem

Other sources have reported some very interesting additional insights. In some cases some wireless networks met their match and were simply oversubscribed. For example, on July 29th mobile Twitter users overwhelmed one wireless network to the point that the traffic interfered with TV coverage - Reuters reported that “commentators on the men's cycling road race event were unable to tell television viewers how far the leaders were ahead of the chasing pack because the data from GPS satellite navigation systems traveling with the cyclists was unable to get through the crowded network.”

It is well worth noting that the IOC itself has strongly encouraged the use of mobile social networks, and was apparently at a loss for words to offer a solution. A spokesperson pointed out that the IOC could not really backtrack on the grand mobile experiment, though a plea did go out to only send “urgent” tweets rather than endless streams of them.

Clearly we now fully live in a fully mobile world.



Want to learn more about today’s powerful mobile Internet ecosystem? Then be sure to attend the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo, collocated with ITEXPO West 2012 taking place Oct. 2-5 2012, in Austin, TX. Co-sponsored by TMC Partner Crossfire Media the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo provides unmatched networking opportunities and a robust conference program representing the mobile ecosystem. The conference not only brings together the best and brightest in the wireless industry, it actually spans the communications and technology industry. For more information on registering for the Mobility Tech Conference & Expo click here.

Stay in touch with everything happening at Mobility Tech Conference & Expo. Follow us on Twitter.


Tony Rizzo has spent over 25 years in high tech publishing and joins MobilityTechzone after a stint as Editor in Chief of Mobile Enterprise Magazine, which followed a two year stretch on the mobile vendor side of the world. Tony also spent five years as the Director of Mobile Research for 451 Research. Before his jump into mobility Tony spent a year as a publishing consultant for CMP Media, and served as the Editor in Chief of Internet World, NetGuide and Network Computing. He was the founding Technical Editor of Microsoft Systems Journal.

Edited by Brooke Neuman


FOLLOW MobilityTechzone

Subscribe to MobilityTechzone eNews

MobilityTechzone eNews delivers the latest news impacting technology in the Wireless industry each week. Sign up to receive FREE breaking news today!
FREE eNewsletter