Excessive Tweeting Takes Toll On Olympics

The staggering size of the Olympics is doing more than congesting London's street traffic - it's hampering data traffic, as well. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is pleading with fans to reduce the number of tweets and texts they're sending, as the data usage has actually started to interfere with the games. Fans are asked to keep their social media updates to ones that are "urgent."

The most noticeable effect of the intense mobile device traffic is that reporters and the Olympic Broadcasting Service (OBS) were having trouble providing up-to-date information about the men's cycling race as it happened. At least one data carrier experienced major network disruption, and the IOC pointed to the overwhelming mobile device usage as slowing info from the GPS system. The event itself wasn't affected by the network problems, thankfully. The issue affected reporting of the distance between the race's leaders and the following cyclists.

Heavy network traffic during the Olympics was anticipated by data carriers, and they've been preparing for the events alongside the IOC in the run up to the Olympics. Even so, they're straining under the load: users reportedly sent nearly ten million tweets at the opening ceremonies. Carriers expect to resolve the issue so fans get back to sharing their thoughts on the games.