April 19, 2010 - How much bandwidth do you need?
Mike Wakim writes that if you want to make the most of your workers, a heck of a lot
I once attended a seminar by John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems. As you may know, he’s a high-voltage guy – I avoided touching the metal part of my seat, just in case.
He gave a visionary talk about the future of the Internet, and one comment stood out: He told us to spend as much money on IT as possible. I initially wrote his statement off as self-serving.
Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea, which continued to impress me as true. We excel at creating faster and faster communication equipment, but do we take advantage of it in our businesses?
Dinosaurs and databooks
As an MIT undergrad, I was impressed that I could control my thesis equipment from the comfort of my dorm using a “high-speed” modem at a blistering speed of 1,200 bits per second. I even considered using this as a pickup line at campus parties.
Now, 25 years later, the engineers I work with design equipment operating at 100 gigabits per second. That’s 83 million times faster.
En route to our lab, I passed by an old bookcase filled with ancient objects once known as databooks. What’s funny is my spellchecker just told me that databook is no longer a word! Engineers still need information about the latest electronic components, but now this information is online. The 50 engineers I work with in Ottawa all access such data simultaneously.
When engineers are in the “zone,” 10 megabits per second is torture. More bandwidth is needed.
Internet addiction and productivity
I recently had a few spare hours in Menlo Park, Calif. so I decided to attend a public lecture at Stanford University. It was promoted as an information session on how to start a tech company in Europe. I don’t think the presenters intended it, but the message I got was: “Stick to Silicon Valley.”
The lecture hall was packed with Stanford students. I’m pretty sure I was the oldest person in the audience. Two really attractive female grad students showed up late, and had no choice but to sit in the only remaining seats – one on either side of me (I didn’t mind).
Both women opened their laptops and began a multitasking binge. They looked up the bios of the presenters, worked on assignments, and even sent instant messages to each other (I clearly didn’t exist).
You have two choices – either provide crummy Internet to punish (employees) for doing non-work stuff, or provide great Internet so they can finish their distractions faster and get back to work.
Humiliation aside, here’s my point – as much as you might wish that your employees do nothing but work with laser focus all day, the reality is that they use your Internet bandwidth to do a lot of other things. So you have two choices – either provide crummy Internet to punish them for doing non-work stuff, or provide great Internet so they can finish their distractions faster and get back to work.
I believe your business will be stronger using the last option.
Home and business Internet
Phone and cable companies compete in an epic battle to provide low-cost Internet service for your home. But don’t assume these prices extend to your company’s Internet service; rather, business Internet can typically cost 10 times more for the same apparent bandwidth.
But unlike at home, you usually get the benefit of consistency, symmetry, and unlimited monthly traffic.
Symmetry is important for business Internet service. Our company has offices in Ottawa, Toronto and California, and our engineers exchange data constantly. Symmetrical Internet is critical to make sure this process isn’t impeded.
Consistent bandwidth is important because you don’t want employees sitting around. Like it or not, they truly can’t function without the above. A half-hour slowdown at home can be annoying, but at work it means paying a whole bunch of employees to read the words “this connection has limited or no connectivity” over and over again.
My advice is to listen to your VP of engineering rather than your CFO on this one.
Your Internet bill will be microscopic compared to your monthly payroll. Invest in what’s important. The last thing you want is 50 top-notch engineers sitting around waiting for information to download.
Michael Wakim is founder and CEO of Fidus Systems, an electronic product development company with design groups in Ottawa, Toronto, and Milpitas, Calif.
