Anthony Ricigliano News- Internet Bandwidth is a Company Asset

March 27, 2012 - PRLog -- For most companies, Internet bandwidth is just as important as floor space or any other critical asset. While you would never give up 25 percent of your physical space for non-work use, many organizations waste a full quarter of their bandwidth by not controlling employee usage. In fact, unauthorized media streaming during major sporting events has been known to cause “brown-outs” that disrupt the paying customers’ ability to access company websites.

Lost Bandwidth is an Expensive, Hard-to-Detect Expense
Although brown-outs are very noticeable, day-to-day slowdowns are much harder to detect. Emails may take a few extra minutes to deliver, web pages may need a few extra seconds to load and the quality of your Internet conferencing may suffer. Even though everything works, your company will experience losses including:
• Unnecessary connectivity expenses
• Wasted time due to slow connections
• Lost business due to service delays or outages

The Problem Will Only Get Worse
When the Internet was first created, it was a novelty that many people used only as needed, much like long-distance phone calls. As high-speed connections became more commonplace, like free long-distance calling, more and more people began to take instant access to the web for granted. With this mindset, most employees don’t think they’re causing a problem by continuing their surfing habits on the job. However, when you combine the activities of hundreds or thousands of users accessing the same connection at the same time, the impact can be dramatic, and it will only get worse as the Internet switches from text-based pages to more resource-intensive material like streaming high-definition video and live chats.

Where is all the Bandwidth Going?
Although employee Internet use peaks during lunchtime, usage is fairly constant from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. In the morning, workers tend to spend more time checking personal email and paying their bills while streaming media is more popular during the afternoon, especially right before quitting time. Text-based email usage is not nearly as resource intensive as watching streaming video, but the sheer volume makes the impact almost as large with spam emails accounting for up to 90 percent of total email communication.

How Much is Wasted Bandwidth Costing Your Company?
Even a small company with about 100 employees could waste thousands of dollars each year through unchecked employee misuse of email and the Internet. This doesn’t count lost opportunity cost and increased payroll expenses caused by wasted man-hours. In a day and age when every penny counts, most companies can’t afford to ignore this type of loss when it comes to their bottom line.

Takes Steps to Reclaim Your Lost Bandwidth
By taking the right steps now, you can reclaim your lost bandwidth, reduce your expenses and increase your company’s performance immediately. Here are some measures you can take:
• Analyze Your Current Usage – It’s impossible to tackle a problem without knowing the details. Many firewall products are capable of creating reports that will show you exactly how your bandwidth is being used.
• Prioritize Access – By giving a higher priority to enterprise-critical Internet access, you can minimize the impact even if you don’t reduce the actual waste.
• Stop Spam – Use cloud-based filtering to stop spam emails before they can clog your internal servers and distract your employees.
• Block Inappropriate Internet Usage – In addition to physically blocking inappropriate sites, educate your employees about the cost of excessive Internet usage through policy changes, training and enforcement.

By minimizing wasted bandwidth, you can reduce your expenses and increase productivity. Take steps today to analyze your current Internet usage and take care of this common problem.
Anthony Ricigliano

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Anthony Ricigliano -Follow business news and advice by Anthony J Ricigliano. Today’s businesses are grappling to stay ahead of the daily changes brought on by the evolution of technology. It’s a challenging environment but one where Anthony Ricigliano