Record numbers to inspire business generation

Marcus Jewell looks at the Games' impact on future mobile video implementations

Mobile video request records at the BBC during the Olympic fortnight reportedly suggest that more than three million of us watched the action from mobile phones or tablet devices. At its peak, 700GB/s of data sprinted around the country's networks. This is a huge triumph and achievement for the broadcaster, and marks a turning point for the future use of mobile devices, both at home and at work.

They called this the first Twitter Olympics. But perhaps more significantly, it was also the first mobile video Olympics.

It used to be war that gave impetus to invention. Now it is leisure. See, for example, our addiction to smartphones and tablets, which is driving the BYOD phenomenon. Now that we expect high-quality video on our devices, as suggested by the staggering Olympics figures, businesses need to prepare for integrating quality video into their operations, both on the desktop and mobile devices.

While the trend towards rich mobile media is hardly new, the quality of the Games experience on mobile should spur on businesses to prepare to deploy high-resolution, high-performance mobile videoconferencing capability into their own infrastructure.

And they should recognise that this will become expected by users and customers. The starting pistol has been fired. It will require investment in next-generation networks, such as Ethernet fabric technology, that are designed to cope with the enormous, hard-to-predict traffic volumes that rich media traffic entails.

Security, policy management, regulation and so on have all instigated a high volume of industry chatter and a certain degree of nervousness from businesses, which may be eyeing the need for more resources warily, and more investment of time and money into platforms and platform management. Yet often the network is forgotten.

While it is unlikely that the majority of organisations will experience data flow at 700GB/s in the near future, attention must still be paid to the network when it comes to resourcing.

Business customers may still blanch at the thought of investing in the "luxury" of mobile, but they must consider it as part of their business strategy over the next two years.

The use of mobile will permeate even the smallest businesses, used to facilitate flexible working and reduce the need for travel.

Selling a fledgling concept, strategy or technology is always difficult. There is generally skepticism and concerns about risk. But the Olympic evidence has inescapable conclusions.

Of course, real-world applications, backup statistics and cold, hard facts will be useful to drive customer conversations, and mobile video may not be right for every business. But it is important to anticipate whether it could become a big part of clients' business strategies and recognise the growing operational challenges that may result.

It presents a strong opportunity for VARs. We need to maintain gold standards in networking to realise any Olympic legacy for mobile video and content as well.

Marcus Jewell is UK country manager at Brocade