Spam messages, large joke emails, games, personal photos, novelty file downloads, and so on can all clog bandwidth and reduce network speed. Such items may have a serious effect on legitimate business use. Many businesses have documented that up to half of network bandwidth is consumed by only five percent of users. A single 5MB joke screensaver file consumes the same bandwidth as over 160 plain text business emails. Such a joke file is likely to be redistributed several times, further draining resources.
Web sites containing audio and video files also consume both employee time and bandwidth.
Non-business use of email and the Internet may well account for more than half of a company's bandwidth usage. The first step in resolving these problems is to put in place a corporate Internet usage policy. MailMarshal and WebMarshal can be the key to enforcing such a policy and reducing wasted bandwidth improving network performance. Such messages are typically larger than average Reports on bandwidth usage can be generated by user, group or department.