Pay TV providers globally are experiencing unprecedented traffic demand on their video networks, driven by strong consumer interest in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, according to Velocix, a market-leading content delivery software and service provider.

Velocix supplies software and fully managed services for video service provider based content delivery networks (CDNs) and it has tracked the video traffic peaks in countries around the world as fans watch the football tournament in Qatar.

The company’s managed services team has recorded the largest viewing increases in Latin America, with pay TV operators’ peak traffic levels rising by as much as 140 percent in some countries, Velocix said in a media statement.

In Europe, the peak traffic increases have also been impressive, with video service providers experiencing surges of up to 82 percent. In North America, modest increases in peak traffic have been recorded of around 20 percent, potentially reflecting the lower profile of soccer in the region.

Marco Rico, VP of Maintenance and Managed Services at Velocix, said: “Velocix has been working closely with many of the world’s largest pay TV providers over several months to prepare their content delivery networks for the upswell in viewership caused by the FIFA World Cup. This detailed capacity planning and network optimisation ensures consumers are able to enjoy the highest quality viewing experience, even as network traffic reaches record levels.”

“As the competition progresses through to the final, we are expecting even higher streaming traffic peaks. Over the coming days, we will be monitoring video networks as they come under greater pressure and will fine tune the CDNs as needed to deliver the best performance to sports fans around the world,” Rico added.

Velocix’s carrier-grade content delivery solutions support high capacity live, on-demand, time-shifted video and cloud DVR applications, enabling operators to rapidly scale-out premium multiscreen video services using cloud and on-premises software to best suit individual business requirements.

Meanwhile, earlier in the month, soccer’s global governing body FIFA had said that the soccer fiesta’s viewership on TV and online has been dishing out equally impressive performance — and numbers.

World Cup Qatar 2022, according to a FIFA statement, continued to engage TV audiences around the world with record-breaking numbers across multiple markets.

In Japan, for example, the group game between Japan and Costa Rica on November 27 drew an average audience of 36.37 million viewers. This surpassed the audience of their incredible comeback against Germany in their tournament opener by over 10 million and was 74 percent higher than the average domestic group stage audience during the FIFA World Cup in 2018.

On November 24 in the Korea Republic, 11.14 million people watched the tournament opener against Uruguay. The broadcast saw a 97 percent increase in TV audience compared to the average for group stage matches at the FIFA World Cup in Brazil in 2014 and 18 percent higher than at Russia 2018.

Fans in Europe have also been tuning in for the second round of group stage matches in great numbers On November 28, 65 percent of people watching TV in Spain saw La Roja take on Germany in one of the most anticipated games of the tournament so far. 11.9 million was the combined audience across coverage on La1 and GOL MUNDIAL, exceeding the audience of any group stage game for the FIFA World Cup in 2018.