Thousands of football fans were left in the dark as the Optus football World Cup live streaming service failed to show critical matches.
The World Cup
The World Cup is the most monumental football event by far, where a huge amount of countries come together to battle it out for the trophy and the honors of being the best team in the world.
This particular football championship has attracted millions of viewers around the world, and many are extremely passionate about supporting their favorite teams and wishing them through to the final rounds.
With such an incredibly devoted viewership with many people glued to their television or computer for the duration of the championship, it’s understandable that many would be outraged if their streaming service of choice were to flat out not show these important matches.
This is the case with the Optus football World Cup live streaming service, as many have voiced their disdain for the service’s handling of technical issues that left viewers unable to watch World Cup matches.
Optus Football World Cup Live Streaming Service
When their chosen football World Cup live streaming service failed to show several important matches, many turned their ire towards Optus and expressed anger at the company’s handling of the issues.
On Sunday afternoon, Optus chief executive Allen Lew apologized for the problems being experienced with the streaming service, but that apology fell on deaf ears as the technical issues continued for hours afterward.
On Monday night, in response to the public outcry over the prevention of seeing World Cup matches, they announced that all games in the competition would be simulcast on free-to-air SBS for two days while they took steps to fix the service. But for fans who were looking forward to watching specific games, the outage with the Optus football World Cup live streaming service is a little too serious of a deal to be remedied by a free simulcast.
According to Mr. Lew, “[they] have a dedicated team that have been working around the clock to attend to the technical issues.”
In an interview with ABC New Radio, Technology commentator Trevor long said that this massive problem was due to the design of the Optus streaming network.
“There’s no effect on customers who aren’t interested in the World Cup,” Mr. Long said.
“But if you are looking for the World Cup and you’ve signed up to this Optus sport package, the way they’ve designed their network to deliver that television to mobile phones, tablets and screens around Australia has failed.”
According to Allen Lew, the problem was the “unprecedented demand” for the football World Cup live streaming service, but considering the massive popularity of the event, a lot of people are unsympathetic to this explanation. While it’s good that the company is taking steps to address the issue as soon as possible, it seems like the problem could be more severe than they originally thought.
Optus believed that they had the appropriate infrastructure in order to stream the World Cup given that they had had little issues broadcasting the English Premier League, but the demand for the FIFA World Cup was much higher than the company had planned for. Their systems can’t take the sheer quantity of connections happening at once, and it’s unclear whether the problem will be fixed by Wednesday when the simulcast deal is set to end.
According to Trevor Long, the ability to fix the issue might indeed be out of reach of the streaming company.
“I think it’s a big call to be able to make such a radical change in such a big space of time,” he said.
Fortunately, it appears as if the issue might be fixed with help from SBS as they take the reins to broadcast the entirety of the World Cup in place of Optus.
“I spoke to the SBS managing director and he said they stand ready to help Optus further, which says to me they’re ready to broadcast the whole World Cup if Optus can’t get their act together.”
It’s likely that the reputation of Optus may be damaged for quite some time if they aren’t able to address these issues and make their users happy. The Optus package charges $15 per month, so not having access to the football World Cup live streaming service when they need it has certainly rubbed consumers the wrong way.
