Akamai delivers for leading broadcasters during Michael Jackson's memorial service

BANGALORE, INDIA: Akamai Technologies Inc. today announced online traffic statistics associated with live coverage of the funeral services of Michael Jackson.

Experiencing the second largest day ever in terms of total traffic on the Akamai network, the Company reported it delivered more than 2,185,000 live and on-demand streams in Flash and Windows Media formats.

Total traffic on the Akamai network surpassed a rate of more than 2 terabits per second during the memorial service. A real-time view of streaming on the Akamai EdgePlatform can be seen at: http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/dataviz3.html.

Consumer interest in online news regarding all aspects of Jackson’s life, death investigation and planned funeral proceedings has remained high since his death.

Early on in the online streaming of the memorial services today, at about 1:00 pm EST, there was a peak on Akamai's Net Usage Index for News (http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/nui/news/index.html) at 3,924,370 visitors per minute, with more than 3.3 million visitors per minute coming from North America.

On June 25th, at about 6:30 EST, as word of Jackson’s death began to spread, traffic on the Net Usage Index for News spiked to 4,247,971 global visitors per minute at its peak as compared to average of approximately 2,000,000 visitors per minute globally.
Seventy-five percent of visitors were accessing sites from within the United States.

As a point of comparison, the largest day on the Akamai network in terms of total traffic on its network was the Obama Inauguration live streaming online in January 2009. Please see this press release for further data on that event: http://www.akamai.com/html/about/press/releases/2009/press_012009.html

“When a public figure of global prominence such as Michael Jackson passes away, the public’s desire for up to date information and news is rarely satiated,” said Robert Hughes, executive vice president of Global Sales, Services, and Marketing at Akamai.

“Akamai’s network has seen a steady stream of online traffic when news of any sort related to Michael Jackson is updated, and we expected demand from a global online audience around the online streaming of his funeral would be no different.

"For an event of this scale, Akamai's globally-distributed EdgePlatform is unique in its ability to bypass congestion points on the Internet, and to ensure a reliable, high-quality experience for our customers. While this event was supported without any issues for our broadcast customers, it is also important to point out that Akamai continued to deliver perfect quality of service for the remainder of our 2,800 enterprise customers. This is just the beginning of what is possible when broadcasting live to audiences around the world.”

Akamai also delivered 548 Gbps of live and on-demand Flash streams utilizing Adobe Flash technology.

“Given the widespread impact Michael Jackson had on the pop music scene, it’s no surprise millions of people watched his memorial service streamed live on the Web,” said Jim Guerard, vice president and general manager of Dynamic Media for Adobe. “We’re pleased a global audience was able to access and experience this high-profile event – as it happened – via the Adobe Flash Platform over the Akamai Network.”