With the 2014 World Cup nearing the end of its group stage, increased connection speeds and the exponential growth of connected device ownership are key factors in driving record network traffic and consumption, according to Natalie Billingham, Regional Sales Director, UK and Eire at Akamai.

“Although there is still some way to go in the tournament, the first 16 days have already surpassed all of Sochi 2104 Winter Olympics and London 2012,” she advised. During the Olympics in 2012 Akamai saw 1 billion aggregate video views, which it expects to be increased during the 2014 World Cup. “Sochi itself was 70 per cent higher than London 2012.”

So far the Brazil versus Mexico match on June 17th attracted the highest traffic peak at 4.59 Tbps, by comparison, England – eliminated from the Finals at the group stage – ‘scored’ 3.14Tbps in the  first  game against Italy and 4.11Tbps against Uruguay.

Akamai has prepared rigorously for a busy tournament supporting high quality video streaming, site performance and in some cases security services to 50 rights holders who will deliver live and on-demand video across the world. Akamai is seeing daily average peak traffic across its Intelligent Platform exceeding 20Tbps, and a potential concurrent stream volume of more than 2m.

“We have a number of challenges with events such as the World Cup, said Billingham. These include scaling to meet the demands of delivering major events; reaching portable video-enabled devices, from iOS to Android, with ease; providing a TV like experience, whilst also gaining insight into traffic trends and site visitor behaviour; delivering the highest quality online experience possible and ensuring site availability.

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