MJ Memorial Streams - A Peak At Wireless' Future

Today's Michael Jackson Memorial was the second most stream even since President Barack Obama's Inaugural Ceremony earlier this year.  I was one of those who was stream via my iPhone as I waited in a waiting room at a courthouse along with other potential jurors.

But today's record breaking streams for a lot of onlines news sites like CNN and MSNBC shows just how much people are relying on the Internet for their news, social aspects of their lives, and entertainment.  But more and more, people are more likely to use their wireless devices in the iPhone (using the Ustream app) to get live broadcasts.

In fact just this week, Al Jazeera released their own iPhone app.  What's different from other news apps from the likes of NYT and Bloomberg is that the Al Jazeera app offers live stream to the English feed.

This brings up the subject of the inadequacy of wireless networks being able to support hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of simultaneous streams over the wireless Internet.  That time will come sooner than anyone expect.  What may possibly stave off that day is the continuing efforts of the wireless providers doing whatever they can to restrict and hinder use of wireless Internet as it should be to hide the fact that by maximizing profit, they failed to build the infrastructure to adequately serve its customers and burden the load.

Here are some statistics from the morning's memorial stream:

• 7 Million simultaneous streams by Akamai
• 9.7 million live streams by CNN (25 million streams for the Obama inauguration)
• 6,000 updates per minute from Facebook users
• CNN served almost 11 million unique users, MSNBC served 7 million unique users
• Ustream (also offers iPhone app) served up 4.6 million streams and recorded 12K messages per minute.

It is safe to say that none of the wireless providers in the US would be able to even handle a small fraction of this kind of traffic.  40% of regular cell phone users have indicated they will opt for a smartphone or mobile device during the next upgrade cycle.  iPhone and Pre are selling like hot cakes and they'll be joined by new Android and Blackberries.

And these new mobile warriors will definitely be using their new mobile gears for more than making calls or texting.

More stats at NewTeeVee