Smoothing the Way for Web Video

Live streaming video still has its fair share of hiccups, but the industry is working to ensure the supply of bandwidth keeps up with demand

by Peter Burrows

In a matchup broadcast online courtesy of CBSSports.com, Yusef Smith of the Saint Mary's Gaels shoots over Jimmy Graham of the Miami Hurricanes during the first round of the 2008 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament on Mar. 21. Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

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If you've been on the Web in recent days, you've no doubt noticed that CBS is pulling out all the stops to cash in on March Madness. Unlike a year ago, when games were only shown to registered CBS users, all 63 games of this year's NCAA basketball tournament will be available for live streaming to anyone (BusinessWeek, 3/20/08).

And for the first time, CBS is letting hundreds of other sites—including Facebook—feature its coverage as well. "We expect [viewer] growth of 50% from last year," CBSSports.com General Manager Jason Kint was predicting before the tournament began. He was wrong. On the first day of play, 1.7 million people logged on—more than doubling 2007's traffic.

That sounds terrific if you're a CBS (CBS) executive—but a nightmare for the techies who have to make it all come off as glitch-free as possible. For the past six months, they've been carefully planning for the flood, reassigning many of the 600 servers from CBS's football fantasy league, and negotiating deals to crank up capacity with network partners that cache the games on thousands of servers at thousands of locations.

Better Service for Net VIPs

Even with all that, CBS has hedged its bets by only promising fast, smooth delivery to the 500,000 "VIPs" who preregistered. Others may have to wait minutes for the video to start. "We'd rather have a great experience for 500,000 users" than have everyone go away unsatisfied, says Tony Fernandez, CBSSports vice-president for technology.

Welcome to the new world of massive-scale Net media. First came the bouillabaisse of eclectic prerecorded YouTube videos. With that, the world's media companies began racing to cater to the online addictions of the MySpace generation, offering many of the most popular TV shows online and creating new ones specifically for the Web. Now comes the advent of truly gargantuan online events.

Just ask Oprah Winfrey. In early March, many of the 700,000 viewers who tuned in for the first in a 10-part series of highly promoted Webcasts encountered glitches almost from the start. The video slowed, dropping out of sync with the voices. "It got unwatchable," says Margie Backaus, an executive with Equinix who went home early that day to log on. "After 15 minutes, I said, 'I'm out.'"

Hoping for a TV-Like Experience

Oprah's production company quickly fixed the glitches, and two subsequent shows came off just fine. But such slip-ups raise a bigger issue: how to keep up with the soaring demand as Net video goes mainstream? The basic math is daunting. Even garden-variety video takes up vastly more bandwidth than e-mail and Web surfing, and there's little doubt that demand for high-definition quality will soar as the growing number of consumers with HD-TV sets and cable programming come to expect a TV-like experience on the Net.

When you click on a Web link or send an e-mail, a few seconds' wait is no big deal—and doesn't tie up any bandwidth until your next click. Not so with video, which requires a "persistent" link to ensure no delays. Worse, video tends to be viral, creating "flash crowds" of people all wanting to view it at the same time.

And that's just prerecorded content. Live events are far trickier, as is anything that involves interactivity—whether it's serving up ads targeted to particular viewers, or making sure a video game player isn't obliterated due to technical difficulties in an online multiplayer competition. Such content can't just be cached out somewhere at an Internet node near you; each user's clicks need to talk more directly to the central server.

Comcast Embroiled in Controversy

Naturally, the industry is on the case, pursuing a host of strategies and technologies to make sure the supply of bandwidth never falls too far behind demand. For starters, carriers such as Verizon (VZ) and Cablevision (CVC) are spending billions to expand the bandwidth into people's homes and cell phones, while installing ever-bigger routers within their networks. AT&T (T) and Verizon Wireless, for example, just spent a combined $16.3 billion in a government auction for additional radio spectrum that can be used to deliver high-speed wireless Internet services (BusinessWeek.com, 3/20/08).