Companies keep tight rein on broadband
Goal: Save bandwidth for work, not goofing off
More corporate IT directors are playing traffic cop. Companies are stepping up their efforts to slice and dice their data network’s bandwidth to ensure that critical work flow isn’t hampered by employees’ demand for greater Internet access.
With heavier files jamming the network, some employees in need of critical business applications are given more capacity on the data network than those with less pressing business need.
“Organizations see it as a necessity in order to achieve the right type of experience,” says Tom Hobika, vice president of business development for XO Communications, which helps manage corporate networks.
The problem of clogged networks has been exacerbated by wide use of streaming sites, such as Netflix and Pandora, and by workers tapping into corporate Wi-fi to listen to music, watch videos and use social-networking sites on personal devices — even if it’s during breaks.
The issue is particularly urgent for global or national companies with far-flung branches. Candymaker Cadbury, a Kraft subsidiary, chose to manage the network used by its global offices more extensively after an audit found 55% of its traffic was recreational, says Nolan Rosen, chief marketing officer at Exinda, a consultant to Cadbury. Each office now gets prioritization based on size or contribution, he says. At Georgia Southern University, game videos used by the football team or video-based student learning applications get priority over videos shared by students. “Almost every company has a heat map of what it considers is important,” Rosen says.
XO worked with a movie studio that has marked special network priority for video files that are delivered from movie production sites to post-production digitization studios, Hobika says. Another XO client sends its buy and sell orders on an entirely dedicated network so that they are processed in a timely way, he says.
While some companies even manage their bandwidth based on hours — more and faster Internet access for those who work at night — others lower the amount of bandwidth assigned for phone calls in the evening. That way, large data files can be transmitted quickly and seamlessly when fewer people are making calls on the network, Hobika says. “They want to do this securely and also to ensure that data delivery takes preference over buying shoes at Zappos.”