According to Nielsen’s “VideoCensus,” online video viewing is up this year compared to last. Total video streaming was up 31.4%, and viewers spent an average of about 3.5 hours watching online video in July. This is an increase of 42.2% from 2008. The most popular video Web site was YouTube with over 7 billion streams in July 2009. A simple 5 minute video on YouTube uses 12,500 kilobytes in bandwidth.
Online video viewing often happens in the workplace where users have access to a faster Internet connection. This can cause network slowdowns or latency in the workplace if abused.
The below Cyfin and CyBlock reports can be used to track bandwidth usage by users and identify potentially troublesome sites. These reports can help you anticipate overload possibilities and the need (or lack of need) to purchase additional capacity. If abuse can be detected and brought under control, the cost of additional capacity may be avoided.
- Site Analysis Bandwidth Report – Focusing on kilobytes by classification, category, and users, this report gives a good overview of whether the majority of bandwidth consumption was acceptable and which categories and users used the most bandwidth.
- Top Bandwidth Sites Report – This report shows the top bandwidth consuming sites and their categories for the specified time period.
- Network Information Report – Find out your busiest time of day for Internet use with this report. It shows visits and kilobytes read by hour.