Quotas and bandwidth limiters are tricky to implement correctly, and in my experience end up generating even more issues than they solve.
Music streaming itself is *usually* pretty low-impact - even at higher quality streams like 192kbps, it takes a LOT of streams to really add up to something noticeable. Video streams, on the other hand, can put a dent in bandwidth really quickly. Though we've definitely had issues with our internet, we've never actually run into a situation where we "ran out of bandwidth". Every "bandwidth" issue we've had actually ended up not being a bandwidth issue at all, but some sort of network behavior that triggered a throttle upstream with our internet provider. Burst bandwidth speeds would stay normal, but ping times would go WAY up, making everything *feel *slow (which is as bad as it actually being slow). We've actually had more issues with designers who sync big PSDs to Dropbox all day than we have with ANY entertainment media. And that's a tough one, because people use Dropbox to be productive. Two recommendations: 1) there's a mac app called PeakHour (available in the app store) that connects to many popular routers and lets you monitor inbound/outbound bandwidth. It sits in the menu bar and lets you easily notice when there's heavy traffic usage. See if PeakHour graphs seem to match the slowdowns that you're noticing, which will be easier b/c the graph is always handy in real time. 2) Depending on your router, you may be able to inspect the bandwidth usage on a per-user basis. If you can figure out who those users are, I'd be very surprised if you didn't find that a couple of people are unknowingly doing something that's triggering your network to feel slow. -Alex -- /ah indyhall.org coworking in philadelphia On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 12:44 PM, Randall G. Arnold < [email protected]> wrote: > I'm sure every shared space runs into bandwidth hogs. Ultimately you > need to craft a usage policy of some sort, trying to find balance between > fun/work. It's only natural that you'll identify some forbidden uses > (porn, et al) if not immediately then over time as the need develops. > > I would suggest to music streamers that they should use their mobile > plans for that, and that the space bandwidth is for productivity. Blocking > certain services outright, as corporate environs tend to, can get sticky > but you may have no choice if users insist on hogging bandwidth for > entertainment purposes and it impacts those trying to actually get work > done. > > You can also set quotas per IP address, from your router, and let each > user determine how they want to use that allocation. > > Randy > Tarrant Makers > > > On February 17, 2014 at 11:27 AM Angel Kwiatkowski <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Looks like about everyone is streaming music while at Cohere so it's > putting a strain on our bandwidth. Has your space had this issue and what > are some solutions? > > Angel > > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > Randall (Randy) Arnold > Developer and Enthusiast Advocate > http://texrat.net > +18177396806 > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
