Online surges could force London to ration internet access during Olympics

The web-oriented focus worldwide will lead more people to experience the Olympics online than ever before. Some officials in London are worried that the surge in web use around the city could cause internet outages.

The Cabinet Office sent a notice to several government departments about preparing businesses for the upcoming Summer Games. According to The Guardian, the document says:

“It is possible that internet services may be slower during the Games or, in very severe cases, there may be dropouts due to an increased number of people accessing the internet.”

The document says that internet service providers “may introduce data caps during peak times to try to spread the loading and give a more equal service to their entire customer base”, leading to concerns that major corporations or those in areas of high usage could experience problems.

Businesses are advised to cycle work shifts to ease congestion.

Can you believe this crap? It’s 2012 we’re talking about here. I understand that a good percentage of the population has internet on their phone in addition to at their home and workplace, but they might really need to ration things out? Get on top of this London, internet outages are only for Twitter, not cities.

Note: This also appeared on the Yardbarker Olympics blog