Potential issues ahead as Brits plan to watch the World Cup online at work

New research indicates that over half (54%) of Brits plan to watch the World Cup online whilst at work, a potential nightmare for many businesses!
The research also indicated that nearly 3 in 5 of those asked (58%) had given no thought to the impact that watching matches online at work would have on the company’s network. The likely impact is that many networks will dramatically slow down and in some cases completely crash.
Director of Eclipse, Clodagh Murphy, who carried out the research comments:
UK workers clearly want to watch World Cup matches live on their PCs. However, we advise all businesses to be mindful about the impact this could have on their day-to-day business operations. Streamed content uses a lot of bandwidth and this could seriously impact the performance of their business Internet connection. It could take much longer to download important files or use business-critical applications such as e-commerce sites, email or online backup.
Further insights showed that 56% of office staff had no idea whether their company had guidelines regarding whether they were allowed to watch the World Cup live during office hours. Just over 37% of those who participated in the research believe that watching the World Cup whilst at work wouldn’t affect their productivity.
Eclipse have highlighted in their research that they believe office networks will most likely to be affected on the afternoon of Wednesday 23rd June as England plays Slovenia at 3pm.
Murphy continues:
We expect huge interest in that match as it is England's only group game that happens during the working day. It will be interesting to see how it impacts networks and connectivity. We suggest that all organisations develop robust guidelines on office computer use to avoid network congestion and slow performance of key applications such as Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint and also online data backup processes.