US Presidential election is ‘largest news event’ delivered by Akamai

CDN specialist Akamai Technologies, Inc., has announced that media coverage of last night’s US Presidential Election was the largest single news event the company has ever helped its customers deliver. Live video streaming traffic specific to the election peaked at 7.5 Tbps on the Akamai Platform shortly before midnight Eastern Time on Tuesday, November 8th, eclipsing previous news events, and placing it among the highest video traffic peaks for any individual event delivered by Akamai.

“In what has already been a record-setting year for live streaming with the European soccer finals, Rio and the recent Presidential debates, Akamai has again helped our customers deliver unprecedented levels of online video with last night’s election coverage,” said Bill Wheaton, executive vice president and general manager of media at Akamai. “Not only are more people watching online in general, they’re watching at higher quality, which contributes to the increasingly higher peaks in traffic that we’re observing.”

Yesterday also marked the inauguration of Akamai’s Broadcast Operations Control Center (BOCC) in a Presidential election. Numerous customers took advantage of the dedicated facility, technical staff and services for real-time support and deep operational insight that is critical to successfully delivering live events.

From an historical perspective, Election Day traffic on Akamai in 2004 peaked at a relatively modest 21 Gbps. The 2009 Obama inauguration reached 1.1 Tbps and the Royal Wedding in 2011 hit 1.3 Tbps. More recently, the first 2016 Presidential debate peaked at 4.4 Tbps in September.