Ways to Conserve Internet Bandwidth

Date posted: August 24, 2011

From T1s and Comcast broadband connections and all the way up to dedicated fiber connections, every Internet connection has its limit.  Every business requires a stable and reasonably fast Internet connection for their operations to run smoothly.  This is especially important as organizations are migrating services to the Cloud.   So here are some practices to conserve that precious and critical Internet bandwidth:

• Block access to all streaming websites – One of the largest drains on an Internet connection is the streaming of media sites.  Examples of these would be Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, and even radio stations that broadcast over the Internet.  Each of the media streams takes up a steady and small/medium sized portion of bandwidth.   If you were to have a T1, which is the typical business connection, it would only take eight employees streaming an audio feed and it would consume one-third of your entire connection.
• Limit the use of personal phone calls – The second most bandwidth-intensive application is VoIP calls and each live/active call take up to 90 Kbps, which is about one-fourteenth of the capacity of a T1.  So if you were to have three employees on the phone for personal reasons, it would take up a 270 Kbps, which takes away that bandwidth for business calls and data.
• Implement an external/hosted firewall – Most Internet providers offer a hosted firewall, so that all SPAM and unwanted attacks are blocked and filtered on their core routers before it is passed along to your circuit.  This is especially important if you are hosting e-mail in-house, because blocking tens of thousands of SPAM before it hits your router/firewall and travels over your business Internet connection can make a huge difference.
• Regular malware scans of computers – Malicious software (spyware, viruses, and Trojans) very often make connections out to the Internet and take up bandwidth.  When computers are infected, they are turned into bots and attempt to infect other computers inside the network and out on the Internet.   Regular scans and reporting are necessary to ensure that no hidden infected computers are lurking.

If you have any additional questions on Internet bandwidth management, please feel free to contact us.