I can vouch for the validity of a lot of what is in this article. I set policy for a network of a little over 200 computers. When I first started I was pretty lax. My opinion in regards to the internet was I didn't care what they used it for as long as it wasn't illegal or dangerous. If it interfered with their work output their boss could deal with it in the same way he'd deal with someone reading a personal book or calling a personal friend at work.<p>But unfortunately it just spun out of control. I had two DS3 lines at 45mbps a piece and they were getting maxed out. I had people bringing in their personal computers and using the wireless network for p2p, people watching TV in their desktop background and all kinds of other stuff.<p>Eventually I had to shut it down. Employees needed the internet for actual work purposes and the personal stuff was causing that to run at painfully slow speeds. In the end I still try to give them a little freedom but only to view regular websites. Anything video/audio related is blocked (to the best of my ability)
Suppose in a company of N employees, you allocated an absolute cap of 1/N of the total upstream bandwidth to each Ethernet port. You wouldn't do that, because it would be slow. So you have to recognize that what you're doing is <i>over-committing</i> bandwidth. You are relying on less than N users sharing. But, bandwidth is a freebie to employees. They gain and don't lose if they maximize usage. That means that they can and will pour effort into subverting any and all firewall controls. That's a race you can't win.<p>Looking at it economically, what's the answer? Obviously, you have to start charging for bandwidth. Treat it as part of the department's budget.