Old: Throw Bandwidth at it. It’s Cheap!

Back in the days when new customers were easy to find and cash flow was plenty, a lot of businesses “fixed” problems the easy way… by spending money. One of the places that businesses did this was on Internet and remote office connections.

When staff members started to complain that the network was slow, the telephone company or Internet provider was called and additional capacity was added. We’ve seen companies with less than 15 people have a $2000/month, 10Mb Metro Ethernet. Crazy!

New: You Probably Don’t Need All That Bandwidth

The fact of the matter is that most people (including those on your IT staff) have NO CLUE how much you really need and what it is being used for at any given time. Ask them these questions and watch for the blank stare.

• Are we using all of the bandwidth that is allocated from our ISP, or can we reduce it?
• Who in our company uses the most bandwidth? Can it be reduced? If so, how?
• If you look at our web traffic, what categories of sites are being visited most?

Don’t be too disappointed when they can’t provide you with the answers. Chances are that they don’t have the tools in place to answer these questions, because they have never been asked.

First: Call Your Phone Company Today

Have them analyze your usage over the last 30 days. They will be able to tell you whether you are using all of your bandwidth or not. If you aren’t using all of your allocated bandwidth, ask them to reduce it to a more adequate level.

If they tell you that you are maxing out the bandwidth, here is where the hunt for dollars really begins.

The Case for Network Monitoring Tools

While you want to allow your employees the freedom to check their personal email or jump onto Facebook a couple of times a day, you really don’t want them watching live streaming video or using peer-to-peer file sharing applications. These applications can (and will) utilize 100% of your bandwidth all the time, which means that your business-related activities will never perform properly. Talk about a waste of money!

Misconfigurations, like having all  systems individually going out to the Internet for updates, is another drain on bandwidth. Proper network design is to have a single system go out for the update, and then all other systems collect the update from the first system. Again, another waste of money if not configured properly.

Proper network monitoring can capture data about your usage, allow you to run reports and find costly problems like these. End result: recurring monthly savings.

There are Easy-to-use Tools to Help

There are a boatloads of tools on the Internet to help determine what is using your bandwidth and whether it is legit or not (over 1400 on download.com as of this writing). Most of them require a rocket scientist to install and configure, and then an advanced degree just to read the reports.

If you have or are an IT person, download this free network monitor tool.

Contact us if you don’t have an IT person on staff,  or if you would prefer a more detailed bandwidth consultation.

Telephone: 561-491-5725

Email: sales@DedicatedIT.com

Or for immediate help, Chat with a Solutions Expert