Should I block streaming audio at work?

Question

I'm a systems administrator and there's a debate whether or not streaming audio consumes alot of abdnwidth. To me it's obvious that it does because when we blocked it as a test our performance was much faster. But I wanted to ask others' techincal opnions on allowing the streaming content or not.

Answer 1

If it's big enough of a problem that it's causing your entire network to begin to crawl, I would block it. Even if you make 'enemies' as one previous poster mentioned, in the end it's a business and if the network is sluggish, it may prevent things from getting done.

Answer 2

From one System Admin to another -



BLOCK IT - OH YEAH!!



Especially if your network is mostly file-based and peer-to-peer. For example - users working out of MS Office documents (Word, Excel, Access) from a file server.



Office documents consume a lot of bandwidth because they shove the entire file across the LAN.



Even though some users will whine about no audio/video they will see an increase in all around network speed. (When are users not whining, anyway?) So they won't complain too much. They always have their CD-ROM, right?



BTW - tell your IS management that they need to move to Service Oriented Architecture instead of crappy File Oriented Architecture.



Then there will be enough bandwidth for all, even the dirty YouTube trolls!

Answer 3

Unless there is a work related reason to stream audio, you can safely block it. It will improve performance.



There might be no reason to do this if you live in the US. Congress has passed a rate hike for people streaming "radio" in the US. It is very costly and will put most sites out of business.

Answer 4

Any sort of streaming is a drag on the bandwidth, so if you're interested in a faster performance, then you should block it. Granted there are always ways around anything that's blocked, but for performance I would block it.

Answer 5

you may make a lot of enemies if you do block audio/video streaming, but then if it is not needed to get the office work done then i say block it.

Answer 6

Streaming definitely cuts into bandwidth. If you have the ability to block it, you should. People will be mad...but they can put cd's in...or use their PC to play music..or buy an mp3 player or radio...Each person that streams cuts into download speeds. So if you have multiple people, it will cut into your download speeds pretty quick.

Answer 7

It does consume depending connection speed but it will make you some enemies....

Don't do it

Answer 8

well streaming consumes a hell lot of bandwidth...

i wld do it without it