[update-3] The Royal Wedding Challenge - Extended Report by Sandvine

  

Sandvine published a full report on the global event of the Royal wedding.

The data was collected from "fixed and mobile networks from 5 continents, representing millions of Internet users"  and showed that "during the ceremony itself Internet traffic did briefly exceed normal levels. Immediately after the primary coverage and events ended, traffic dropped to 20% below normal levels, perhaps as many people in the Americas went back to bed after a long night or early morning" (top chart below).

Nevertheless (no surprise here, although the day was a public holiday in the UK so you'd expect majority of people watching it on broadcast TV) - "BBC’s iPlayer streaming increased to 6 times its normal levels around the world. BBC iPlayer is technically only available in the United Kingdom, but diehard royal watchers obviously found mechanisms to get around the restrictions. Looking at Figure 3, the local peaks correspond to the beginning of the ceremony, the carriage ride, and the first kiss" (2nd chart).

Other highlights:

• Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) doubled, and global video traffic surged to 26% above normal levels, peaking during the wedding ceremony itself during the wedding ceremony itself
   
• Traffic on the social media sites Twitter and Facebook peaked 30% and 10%, respectively, above normal levels and local peaks corresponded with highlights of the wedding coverage
   
• Levels of Octoshape, a proprietary streaming platform used for large-scale online events (most recently President Barack Obama’s inauguration and Michael Jackson’s memorial service) increased 60 times the normal level

Download "Global Internet Phenomena Spotlight: The Royal Wedding" - here (registration required - includes nice pictures on the newlywed couple - but none of Pippa, my favorite character in the event, so I added one). See also Tom's blog post - "Global Internet Phenomena Spotlight: The Royal Wedding" - here.