Optimisation techniques are essential for network traffic

Recent figures from the solutions provider Sandvine show that the need for network traffic to be optimised is a must and bandwidth consumption needs to be controlled with a ‘fair usage’ policy.

It has been suggested by an expert that with broadband users increasingly using websites that stream video content it is essential that the policy of optimising network traffic is used.

With the huge amounts of bandwidth that is currently being utilised an emphasis is required on the need for a fair usage policy to be in operation to cope with said Dave Caputo, co-founder, president and chief executive of Sandvine, an intelligent broadband network solutions provider.

He also commented “This reinforces the importance of protecting real-time applications that are sensitive to jitter and latency during times of peak usage. Effective network traffic optimisation techniques use sophisticated policies that balance network capacity, application requirements and subscriber quality of experience in real-time.”

The comments made by Mr Caputo came following the recent release of figures by Sandvine showing that streaming videos and web traffic make up 59 percent of the consumption of downstream bandwidth.

The fair usage policy that is in force with the majority of broadband provider, even those offering ‘unlimited’ packages, is something that is often argued about by many industry experts. It is, however, a sensible conclusion from the report issued by Sandvine that with the current broadband technology deployed throughout the country and the way in which the internet is currently being used that some form of network traffic management system is used to prevent speed from dropping to unacceptable levels. With this in mind the fair usage policy and other network traffic optimisation tools are currently the best way to ensure all users get their fair share of downstream bandwidth.