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Is AIM Really a Bandwidth Hog?

Posted by Cliff on from the a-danger-to-those-with-small-pipes dept.

Crispen asks: "A mess of schools, especially K-12 schools in the US, have banned instant messaging, claiming that it is a huge bandwidth hog. Is it? If you block ports 4443 (images) and 5190 (file transfers), how much bandwidth does AIM really take?"

1 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Schools I've had to deal with... by The+Fink · · Score: 5, Interesting
    ... have generally had a single- or dual-channel ISDN to share between up to 100 computers. (This is in rural areas of Queensland, Australia - yes, they really do have less available bandwidth than your average cable user, and they pay upward of 40c per megabyte for it...).

    There's two main reasons we've taken to blocking any form of IM, or in fact anything that isn't HTTP/FTP, to student desktops. First, of course, is the somewhat limited bandwidth, although this was the least of our reasons. Secondly, and far more importantly, is the element of control: with a transparent proxy through which all HTTP and FTP traffic is routed, we can (a) cut down the amount of input bandwidth needed, and (b) implement a certain amount of filtering (well known porn sites, ads, etc).

    Not having IM installed on each desktop also means that there's not configuration problems. Realistically schools have to support one environment, and IM systems, with the number that there are, complicate this no end (imagine the arguments if AIM is the only one supported by a school, but a large percentage of kids use MSN...).

    Realistically, if kids want to use IM, they're welcome to do so at home on their own (usually dialup) time. Likewise with any other non-HTTP access. I personally don't see it at that disabling; if kids want to IM each other, they can go back to "pass-it-on" notes. :-)