Video streaming coverage of the 2017 presidential inauguration in the United States is the largest single live news event that Akamai Technologies has delivered, the company said.
Live video streaming of the inauguration peaked at 8.7Tbps on the Akamai Platform at 12:04pm Eastern Time on Friday, January 20, during the opening of the President Donald Trump’s speech.
This exceeded the previous record of 7.5Tbps set during Election Day coverage on the evening of November 8, 2016.
Akamai supported 4.6 million concurrent viewers of the inauguration at peak on behalf of its broadcaster customers.
“The presidential inauguration is the latest in a series of record-breaking live, online video streaming events that we have supported over the last year,” said Bill Wheaton, EVP and GM of Media at Akamai.
“More people than ever are watching video online, and it’s being done across more devices at increasingly higher levels of quality.”
On a historical note, the 2009 US presidential inauguration reached 1.1Tbps on Akamai and the British Royal Wedding in 2011 hit 1.3Tbps.
More recently, the 2016 Euro soccer tournament final peaked at 7.3Tbps and the Rio women’s team gymnastics final hit 4.5Tbps.