internet bandwidth

[steveo123]

dear experienced engineers,

i understand this may sound simple to others but,

if i have 15 end customers all connecting to our core access router with each customer having 2M/2M SHDSL routers that’s 15X 2/2M, will a 1Mbit internet bandwidth be enough for there internet traffic?? i personally think its no where near enough but other engineers don’t agree. input appreciated.

[frennzy]

You can't say yes or no, unless you understand the customer's traffic patterns.

In general, if it's just web surfing and email, I'd say it's plenty. I've had an entire company (250 people) sharing a single T1, with no complaints.

If you are really concerned, you should get some baseline data patterns using MRTG, RRD, or something similar. You could also use NDE. Packeteer Packetshapers are excellent for this type of thing as well.

If you find that a lot of the traffic is non-business related, you can implement traffic shaping to keep critical bandwidth available for business apps, while letting non-priority protocols fill in the gaps of what is left.

[cisco_lad2004]

Hi there

This also calle doverbooking or oversubscription.

U sell more than what u can offer on the grounds that not all users max their links.

Its used in ADSL aggregators with high overbooking factors, so an STM-1 for example would service thousands users. But to me it seems like 15 to 1 or 1500% is a bit too high, 800% with a mix of quiet and busy customers might just work fine.

HTH

Sam

[Kevin Dorrell]

It depends how the service is sold as well. I would say that if you are selling it as a 2 Mbps service, then you should have at least 2 Mbps on your internet link. Oversubscription might be OK, but I don't think you should sell a service that you cannot supply even in optimal conditions. Is it reasonable to assume that a customer will have half his traffic to others of your customers?

That's just a POV. I'm on the enterprise side, not the ISP.

Kevin Dorrell

Luxembourg