Every football fan (or soccer fan, for those of you in the
US) in Europe and worldwide was watching the El Clasico last Saturday. For
those readers who are not die-hard football fans, I will just say that this is
“The Game” – between the two biggest rivals in the Spanish football league.
Needless to say, it’s a big deal.
No doubt, the best viewing experience for a game of this
magnitude is a 50” HD TV set in the living room, surrounded by good friends,
cold beer, and plentiful snacks. But recently, with the proliferation of large
screen smartphones and handsets, a new mobile experience was introduced. In
theory, you can now watch entire football matches on your mobile device, in
high video resolution, over advanced 3G and 4G mobile networks. But does
this really work, and can it satisfy a true football fan?
Honestly, not always.
First of all, for this kind of experience your mobile device
becomes stationary by default. Your device’s battery consumption while watching
multimedia is so huge, you have to stay close to a power supply.
Secondly, the video viewing experience is obviously affected
by the quality of your network. The high expenses and environmental limitations
of mobile networks naturally create bottlenecks during the busy hour, which
means not everyone can watch a live game at the same time in a limited
geographical area. The result – a frustrating viewing experience with frequent
stalls and freezes. And unlike the battery issue, where users are prone to
blame the device manufacturer, when your viewing experience is affected, you
blame the mobile operator. Is this what I’m paying for?!?
Mobile operators know this but are very limited in how to
deal with the problem. They can’t just provide unlimited bandwidth to everyone
who wants it. Some operators plan to offer you more bandwidth during the busy
hour for extra money. But how would they do this? In order to allocate
additional bandwidth for premium users, they will have to reduce the bandwidth
of their remaining subscribers. And the most common way to do this is to throttle
videos using Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) appliances. While this might solve
the problem for premium users, it will also create a lot of unsatisfied
customers – those who haven’t upgraded their data packages.
A better alternative would be to adapt the video to a lower
bitrate whenever needed. This would make the video watchable for everyone,
albeit with slightly lower (but still entirely acceptable) quality. If I had to
watch Christiano Ronaldo’s goal, and the network was loaded, I would prefer to
see it with slightly lower quality rather than have it freeze at the critical
moment right before the kick. And I think my fellow football fans would agree
with me.
The El Clasico ended with Madridista fans cheering for a
2-1 victory which probably leads the way to a championship over the glorious
Barcelona. And with the new technologies, everyone should be able to see the
next nail-biter on their mobile device.
And to help you get the impending summer season started in a
typical Spanish style, here is a nice quick way to make your own Sangria:
Ingredients:
- 1 bottle of red wine
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup orange juice (natural)
- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
- 100 ml rum
- 3 peaches
- 2 apples
- Melt the sugar in a small amount boiled water and chill
- Cut the fruit into small cubes
- Put all the ingredients in a big bowl and stir well
- Chill well (better with large ice cubes than small ones, as they chill faster and melt slower)
- To make it extra festive, you can add 250 ml of vodka
Enjoy!
-- Amir Lapid, Director of Product Management
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