What you need to know to watch the England match

[#1]

On Saturday 10th October, the England football team are playing their penultimate qualifier in the Ukraine. It will be the first time in recent history that an England qualifying match hasn't been shown live on a 'normal' TV channel. This event and the potential number of people streaming this are going to put pressure across the UK broadband networks. This could cause slower than expected speeds for everybody using the internet, including our customers. If you want to watch you can see the game via the official stream here.   Before streaming this there are a few things you need to know prior to kick-off:

• The match will be broadcast in 2 different quality streams, make sure you pick the most appropriate for your connection. The lower quality stream will need around 550kbps whilst the higher one will need over 800kbps.
• You can check the speed of your connection using our speedtest here to see which stream you should choose.
• We'd advise you to close other programs on your computer and try to limit the amount of other web activities going on at the same time.
• Try the test video available here to ensure you are able to view this stream before kick-off.
• Make sure you have the latest version of Flashplayer.
• Check you have JavaScript enabled for Click to Play streaming.

Now all that's left is to watch England win (hopefully).   ~~~~~

How to enable JavaScript for Click to Play streaming

How to do this depends on your operating system, and which web browser you're using.  

Instructions if you have Windows XP or Vista

  Browser: Internet Explorer

• 1. Go to Tools, then Internet Options
• 2. Click on the Security tab
• 3. Click on Custom Level
• 4. Scroll down until you see a section labeled "Scripting"
• 5. Under "Active Scripting", select Enable and click OK

Browser: Mozilla Firefox

• 1. Go to Tools, then Options
• 2. Click on the Content tab
• 3. Make sure there's a tick in the box next to "Enable JavaScript"
• 4. Click OK

Instructions if you have Apple Macintosh

  Browser: Safari

• 1. Go to Safari
• 2. Click on Preferences
• 3. Click on the Security tab
• 4. Make sure there's a tick in the box next to "Enable JavaScript"
• 5. Close Preferences

Browser: Mozilla Firefox

• 1. Go to Firefox
• 2. Click on Preferences
• 3. Click on the Content tab
• 4. Make sure there's a tick in the box next to "Enable JavaScript"
• 5. Close Preferences

[#2]

I'm not interested in football in the slightest, but was intrigued by this so had a little look... and I discovered that even the 'high quality' stream looks rubbish, and that the price is £10 (or £12 on match day) just for the privilege. Considering those two large caveats, are there really going to be that many people who actually watch this?

[#3]

I hope not. I don't want my connection to suffer due to peoples obsession with 11 men kicking a ball about ha.

[#4]

Perhaps not Be3G but I'm sure there will still be slightly more questionable ways to stream the game As long as the medium being used to do this is in our higher priority traffic queues then there's definitely the potential for other customers to feel the strain.

[#5]

same cant stand football. my dog runs rings round the sunday players down the park and makes me laugh that a dog is on the pitch for 30 seconds and scores a goal lol. its enough that football screws the tv schedule up when it wants. its now going to screw my one refuge from it up now as well. not happy. as for paying £10 to watch a 800kbps stream that is insane. free tvcatchup.com streams at 800kbps with the only profit coming from a few adverts. so to charge £10 and give the same quality is pants and money grabing desk monkeys. good look watching a small dont on your screen. might watch it actualy with a marker pen to play guess where the ball is

[#6]

I thought the quality was good compared to the quality I watch all the league games for free on.

[#7]

I hope PN will be giving a specially low priority to these idiots.

[#8]

Well looks like it has totally messed up the broadband for other stuff. Been trying to watch BBC Iplayer and that is not working hardly at all. If football etc is going to cause this type of problem then maybe people who wish to use the internet to watch it should be on an ultra premium priced connection designed just for live sport streaming, the extra money generated could buy them exclusive bandwith so as not to impact on us the everyday users.

[#9]

@Chas, you shouldn't have had any problems with iPlayer traffic, did things return to normal after thr football and was it the normal, high or hd quality iPlayer streams you were trying to watch?