Why is there a tendency for small- and medium-sized businesses to buy more bandwidth than they need?
The first reason is that Internet bandwidth is so inexpensive. For less than 5,000//year, a small company (up to 50 employees) can get all the bandwidth it might need. However, if the company does a lot of data transfer, they may need more than one T1 line. The second reason is that ISPs are glad to sell high-speed connections, especially to companies that don’t consume much bandwidth. In fact, the amount of bandwidth a typical customer really uses is a well-kept secret among ISPs. One ISP’s chief technology officer revealed that his company provisions its network assuming that the typical client will use less than 64 Kbps of bandwidth, 24 hours a day-a profile that most clients would fit unless they’re hosting something like a specialized, high-traffic website.
