Corporate bandwidth management is often left to its own devices until the exponential growth in bandwidth usage costs gets the attention of someone in finance, or starts becoming one of the larger line item on the IT departments monthly income statement. 

Bandwidth usage is the corporate cash flow goldfish

In many respects Internet bandwidth usage has the same characteristics as a goldfish. Goldfish are opportunistic feeders, and will eat as much as you feed them, simply producing waste at a quicker rate, to process all the excess food.  Goldfish also grow to fit the container that is the environment in which they live. Doesn't this sound like bandwidth usage in your company? Of course, if you continue to overfeed your goldfish, and you don't controll their food intake, you will soon find out that there is a problem when they start floating at the top of your fish tank. The same thing happens to your broadband usage costs if left unmanaged,  you notice it when it starts to float to the top of your expense line items.

Bandwidth management requires an integrated management approach

To properly manage bandwidth usage requires the ability to monitor, not just the corporate Internet(WAN) link, but also the bandwidth usage of:

• your off-site staff such as traveling sales people and consultants,
• telecommuting staff or standby support technician who log in from home, and
• any remote branches or satellite offices.

To get a single integrated solution in place to do bandwidth monitoring can be difficult, especially when you have, over time, engaged a myriad of broadband suppliers to provide the different broadband solutions you need. With all these different suppliers it is often difficult to get a single application that will allow you to manage your bandwidth usage with the minimum of time and bother.

In fact, it is difficult to even get reports out of each supplier in a timely manner, and they only true  "report" you get is your monthly invoice, which does not allow you to drill down to find out where all your bandwidth usage is going! Of course, part of the reason it is difficult to get these reports is because this is where your suppliers makes their money. It is not in their interest to assist you in managing your bandwidth usage!

Bandwidth management- Time to put an management process in place

There are several reasons why an integrated bandwidth management approach is difficult:

• Point solutions have been put in place over time - Internet or broadband connections and usage patterns have grown, and changed rapidly over time, as new technologies have enabled better ways of working.  To exploit these technologies point-solutions have been put in place. So a leased line, or bonded ADSL solution is put in place at head office, the branches get their own ADSL accounts, some capped, some uncapped, in the mean time the remote staff have gone and put a wireless solution in place to allow them to connect to head office, using a myriad of wireless technology from 3g, with 4 different suppliers, to iBurst or WiMax.
• Multiple supplier for one commodity - Besides the host of different broadband technologies, often the point solutions come from multiple suppliers, who are really only providing the means to connect to Internet, but their service is bundled with bandwidth as well. The competition for your bandwidth spend is fierce and there is little chance of getting your suppliers to co-operate to supply you with the best bandwidth usage possible.
• No overall architectural plan for your bandwidth needs- Because of the rapid pace of Internet connection or broadband access evolution, it has been impossible to put an overall architectural plan in place for how you will integrate the various broadband options into your network, and how this will be controlled and monitored. Even though the pace of change is unlikely to alter for some time, at least some guiding principles should be put in place when considering any solution. Such principles should include cost, manageability and ensuring as much as possible that the number of suppliers is kept to a minimum.

Cyber Connect offers an integrated broadband management system from one supplier

Taking note of the problems faced by corporates, Cyber Connect has decided to provide all available broadband services to corporates from a single supplier. We will handle all the complex supplier relations on your behalf, and allow you to have a single point of contact, freeing up your time and cash to concentrate on the important areas of your business. Our broad range of experience and expertise with broadband solutions, enables us to provide the best overall broadband solutions for your needs, at the same time allowing the flexibility to take advantage of new technologies when they arise.

Best of all we provide an integrated bandwidth management application that enables you to manage broadband usage at a overall level and to identify and drill down into problem areas to manage usage and costs in a timely manner.  Our application can integrate into your current supplier systems should this be required. So if you would like to make management of your bandwidth usage easier contact us for a consultation.Its time to take control of the corporate goldfish.