how do I figure how much bandwidth streaming audio, video, YouTube, etc use?

[techidave]

Some of my users and i are having a discussion about whether or not listening to online radio stations take up of our available internet pipe?

our pipe at school is a 6m ASDL line.  It is 6mb up and down if that makes a difference.  So if I have one user listening to a radio station, how do I determine how much of that 6mb they are using?  The same would hold true of video, youtube videos, etc.

I have been doing a google search but am having problems coming up with something in clear and simple language.  Also, we are not sending any streams, just receiving them.

I maintain that streaming anything actually opens up multiple connections to the internet and that is what uses up the pipe.  If so, then how do you figure out how many connections you have open?

Most of the articles i can find on the web are to techincal for my brain,  so I figured someone here can translate this for me!   

thanks
dave

[AndyM]

I'm pretty sure Networx (free) will give you the info you want

a recent thread about this:

https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=23420.0

[techidave]

I wasn't really looking for something like that Andy but that is good all the same.  I was trying to figure out if a radio station was streaming at 128 kbps, then is there a way to figure that is going to use say... 2mb of my pipe?  That is for just one user on my network.

sorry that I wasn't very clear.   

[skwire]

A 128 kbp/s stream will take up just that over time, 128 kilobits per second.  It's usually not a completely continuous stream since most players will cache a bit, play, cache a bit more, play, etc.  In other words, streaming audio stations typically take up very very little of your internet connection.  However, keep in mind that that is per user of said stream.

[techidave]

So if I was understanding you correctly, then 10 users each streaming at 128 kilobits per second would then take up 1 meg per second??

[skwire]

Theoretically, yes, it would be 1.25 mbps.  Keep in mind, though, that streams aren't always continuous as I described above.

[AndyM]

If you had two or three machines sitting right there, you could be looking at some of the Networx data while you started and stopped different combinations of streams and downloads on the machines.  Might give you a feel for what's happening in real time.

[f0dder]

Keep in mind also that there's some protocol overhead, not just for the TCP (or, perhaps more likely for streaming media, UDP) but also the streaming protocol used; it's not going to be a lot, but it all adds up.

AndyM's suggestion of monitoring actual network traffic is good - just make sure there's not a lot of other network activity going on while testing how much the streaming uses.

My school has a policy that blocks most destination ports (thankfully not ftp or ssh - that would be quite annoying for a place teaching computer science ), but the World Of Warcrack addicts bypass that using proxies...

[techidave]

I will have to give the networx a whirl and see what happens.

[JavaJones]

Presumably your incoming connection goes through a router/gateway/thingamajig of some kind. What kind? Does it have any nifty management capabilities? Possibly that has bandwidth monitoring, perhaps even per-user...

- Oshyan

[Shades]

NECRO-THREAD-Revival!!!!!

Just found this piece of network traffic analysis software that can be used for free (personal use only!).

It installs WinPCap software as well. It certainly looks like you get a real good look about what is happening in your network.

The only reason I mention the software in this thread is that this seemed the most relevant and recent one (after using the DoCo search functionality).