I was reading on Mashable a interesting post on a survey done which shows a bit of a snapshot of the websites which companies visit with their super fast internet connections. Obviously here we cannot expect shopping portals or blogs to really dominate but expect Social networking websites along Search websites dominating which websites are visited by the corporate world.
Here below is the list of top 5 websites which hog bandwidth for companies according to Network-Box
- YouTube – 10 %
- Facebook – 4.5 %
- Windows Update – 3.3 %
- Yimg (Yahoo!’s image server) – 2.7 %
- Google – 2.5 %
I often see many people arguing for and against banning social networking websites as they waste company time and resources according to many management gurus. But clearly shows that at least when it comes to bandwidth You Tube hogs the bandwidth twice as much as Facebook which is 2nd place.
On the other hand Google comes at a paltry 2.5 % which is incredible as most people are searching and that ideally wont be too much bandwidth.
I decided to check how much time I spend on You tube myself and I actually spend quite a bit of time and I am sure even for personal users You Tube must be a top hog of the bandwidth.
So my question is should’nt IT admins ban You Tube rather than Facebook and Orkut ? Or is You Tube very educational but then some can argue so are social networking sites. 😛
What are you thoughts on it? Do drop in your comments to let me know about them. 🙂
11 Comments
Considering the IPL season going on, Youtube is the most visited site by Indian professionals at their offices. As for the ban, I don’t think any of these sites should be banned at offices. That is micro-management which no employee likes. I’m lucky that my company doesn’t ban any of these sites, except ofcourse p*** sites :).
Btw Aditya congratz on your 300th post :). I think only Rahul has written more posts than you, isn’t it ? You are doing a commendable job, keep going.
Interesting stats, just imagine how they maintain the same.
There’s no need for a doubt in it, dude. Even me, with my night unlimited plans, usually use youtube almost half of my bandwidth
It seems for all of us have You tube hogging the bandwidth.
Btw, Congrats for your 3ooth post, Aditya. You are doing a great job 🙂
Thank you Rajeel.
Found your blog while doing some reseach on top bandwidth hogs. Currently I’m trying to throttle back as much rogue internet traffic as I can before we have to pay to upgrade our circuits again.
Just to comment on the 2.5 percent allocated to Google traffic.
I can easily see this number accurate for a couple of reasons.
1. Millions of searches multiplied by the small thumbnails you get back on every search (measurable)
2. I don’t think the 2.5% is just the google searches. If they’re accounting for google as a domain wouldn’t this include google earth, google maps, gmail and all the other “Google Apps” out there?
Just my two cents on why google made the list. It’s not just the search engine stuff.
Interesting perspective on how search can also have hidden ways to hog traffic with thumbnails.
As the IT Administrator at my company I have ascertained that windows update if remained unchecked, uses the most bandwidth. The windows update site is not only used to update windows, office and antivirus, but also by my servers to check for DNS updates such as root hints etc…
Facebook and Youtube don’t even come close to Windows update as a bandwidth hog.
I had a WSUS server installed to try and curb usage, however it used even more bandwidth than just letting individual machines download what they need.
yes, you have a point but this data was average over a period of time. This might have highlighted YouTube and Facebook as bandwidth hogs instead of a Windows update.
I work in the network IT field as a network administrator for several small companies, I’d have to say, Youtube eats up a ton of bandwidth and time. I manage several schools and the students can’t stay away from youtube because of the music videos, it’s like MTV back in the mid 80’s if your old enough to remember that era. Now with the lots of music downloads moving from peer sharing to youtube/mp3 converters virus activity is on the rise.