Amazing amounts of wasted bandwidth...

The IT department of the last company I worked at had more than 30 computers connected to their intranet that synchronized with a remote service over a fiber link. Huge amounts of data passed through their system. At the end of each business day it did an offsite backup that took nearly an hour. If you needed to use the system during that time you were guaranteed to wait for information stored on the server.

The technician warned everyone who streamed music that only low bandwidth services were ( like Pandora ) were allowed. That didn't stop employees from downloading YouTube videos. That presented two problems... the employees were watching videos and not working and the overall bandwidth use was very high.

The place I'm at now does the same thing on a smaller scale. Streaming music and videos. While some are out on appointments and client meetings, the music on their computers plays on endlessly. One coworker plays movie soundtracks and goes off to meetings. Knowing he's out, I stop the music. I'm there to work and not entertain myself.

In the old days there were bandwidth caps where the service was reduced to a crawl and you had the option to pay for more monthly bandwidth or be frugal and choke your business data because some plans had crazy up-charges for exceeding your quota.

I'm thinking what could happen when more people update their cellphones and get 5G models with 50 times the bandwidth capacity. 5G is advertised free but what happens when excessive use reaches your plan limits. It's time to call and up your limit... or end wasted bandwidth and save your money.