Mobile broadband – a new category?

As if to follow up on my blog posting yesterday, today Allot Communications released a special Mobile Report about the impact of the World Cup on network traffic.

Allot says that mobile devices did not replace big screen televisions during the World Cup, but created a new category where the two operated alongside each other – the small screen enhancing the viewing on the big screen, with additional football and match-related information in real time. The mobile devices were seen providing an ability to watch replays and distribute them virally.

Among the highlights of the report,

• Lunchtime matches showed the largest bandwidth increase with 31%
• Video streaming and P2P increased moderately by 11% and 13% respectively
• Mobile data bandwidth usage experienced a 16% overall increase during post-match mornings

Traffic on YouTube was seen increasing by 32% on the mornings after matches.