ISPA's Trefor Davies plays down Olympic bandwidth fears

Fears over the upcoming Olympic Games causing a squeeze on broadband networks have been played down by Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) member Trefor Davies.

The government warned in February that providers may need to introduce usage caps and other measures to cope with the expected demand for bandwidth, but the Cabinet Office has since insisted that the sporting event is unlikely to cause outages or slowdowns for business connections.

Mr Davies, who is also chief technology officer at communications firm Timico, expressed confidence that disruption to broadband services will be kept to a minimum.

Internet service providers have put "a lot more bandwidth in place" to cope with the anticipated Olympic traffic generated by people watching the action online, he said.

The ISPA member added: "If they do have problems, then there is a solution in place to put in more bandwidth or manage the traffic. People have been thinking about this for a long time."

Advising businesses on steps that can be taken to reduce their bandwidth consumption during the Games, Mr Davies recommended putting TVs in the office and encouraging employees to work from home, using their own broadband connection.