PwC
Peer-to-Peer technology

At PwC in the Netherlands, approximately 4800 people work together from twelve offices. PwC Nederland helps organizations and individuals to create the value they are looking for. They are members of the PwC network of firms in 158 countries employing more than 236,000 people. They see it as their duty to deliver quality assurance, tax and advisory services.

In September 2017, PwC organized a live webinar for its staff. The broadcast aimed at informing employees (many of whom are consultants) about the changes to the tax system for 2018. To ease the burden of the internet feed on PwC’s WAN connection, it was decided to use the peer-to-peer peer (p2p) technology from Company Webcast. This approach was a clear success, with the result that there was no congestion on the connection. The statistics (see image) clearly show that about 95% of the streaming traffic comes from peer-to-peer and only 5% from the internet (HTTP).

Results webinar

Company Webcast’s peer-to-peer solution is interesting for PwC because it enables the company to broadcast live streams with better image and audio quality. PwC employees responded positively to the higher quality livestream. PwC previously used its own internal solution to broadcast live streams internally. However, this solution turned out to be inflexible and had long lead times.

The implementation of Company Webcast’s peer-to-peer technology required minimal involvement from PwC’s IT department. IT’s only real involvement was in the testing phase, and she then advised on the optimal broadcast resolution. No IT deployment effort was required to roll out and / or implement Company Webcast’s peer-to-peer technology; it worked automatically in the internet browser on the computers of all PwC employees.

Experience peer-to-peer technology

Experiences with Company Webcast’s peer-to-peer technology have been positive. “It’s a good solution and I can certainly recommend it to others,” says Stanley Schindeler, IT Architect at PwC.