I've been following the challenge faced by host countries as they broadcast live global sporting events such as the World Cup and Olympics, and naturally, all eyes are on China during these Olympics. China has declared its intention to present a "high-tech Olympics," and the manifestations of that have been myriad. If you were one of the gazillions who tuned into the opening ceremonies, you saw high-tech LEDs, fabrics and much more (who'd have figured the Chinese would do fireworks!). But my focus has been on the communications and broadcasting sectors, and there's been much to think about there as well.

One major theme is access to video, live and on tape, and to various end-user devices. Mobile TV continues to grow, and we have seen partnerships between host broadcaster NBC and numerous companies, from SinglePoint up to AT&T and Microsoft, bringing it to us, in any flavor you could dream up. But with all the emphasis on live video delivered to where you are, I think we're losing sight of the amazing growth in flexible, easy access to video content on the PC screen. Here in the U.S., I can access the NBC Olympics Web site and scroll through dozens of choices for video from the various arenas: Sure, it's not live, but all I have to do is delay reading the morning paper and I can still thrill to the exploits of fencers, skeet shooters, divers and beach volleyball players at any time, in high quality on my PC screen. I'm too old (and nearsighted) to want to watch sports on a two-inch mobile screen, but for the millions who do (including Chinese subscribers who are using the freshly homegrown SC-TDMA standard), you can choose from live clips to alerts and daily digests of the highlights. Does anyone out there still think an unlimited data plan is a frill?

There's been a lot of talk about the use of IPv6 at these games. China, which by some accounts will be the first country threatened by the shortage of IPv4 addresses, has certainly invested heavily in the technology, but indications are that its deployment has been exclusively in the security camera systems set up around the venues. Attendees and media in Beijing, while they can access video as well as the Internet from "e-booths" set up by China Netcom around the area, will likely not be directly experiencing any superior quality that the new standard can supply. In the end, it looks like the jury is still out on the need for the world to convert to IPv6, and we may not get conclusive results of its performance qualities out of Beijing. Meanwhile, broadcasters calling the play-by-play as well as their listeners at home will have touch-screen access to player stats and data to assist their efforts, split-screen view options, and numerous other incremental advances in technology.

As you might imagine, the traffic flows around the media and broadcast center are potentially enormous. Throw in the call centers to field multilingual inquiries on everything from directions to lost tickets, as well as the internal communications needs of the staff running the games, and you might find it easier to believe Atos Origin's staggering claim to have conducted no less than 200,000 hours of testing on the command center systems needed for these purposes.

How well will these enormous efforts translate to later venues and events? I'm somewhat skeptical that, for example, South Africa (in preparing for the World Cup in 2010) will be able to draw too close a connection between the specific offerings and technologies in Beijing and its own situation. The demographics of course are at opposite ends of the spectrum, but it might surprise you to note that the World Cup in soccer is just about the equal of the Olympics in terms of the size of the broadcasting effort. Certainly for now, the Olympics can serve as an indicator to South African regulators and service providers of what is possible — and, by inference, of the barriers to greater takeup that lie in the way at home. Imagine South African consumers trying to figure out which videos to watch online, when their accounts are capped at 3GB per month. The country has just under two years to go, and we'll be watching with great interest. For more on the effort to host the first World Cup soccer tournament in a developing nation, see "Dataquest Insight: World Cup Will Advance South Africa's Telecom Network."