Busting the Bandwidth Hog
By Cheryl Currid
I'm a day trader. I can spend countless hours staring at a realtime quote screen. I'll move into and out of stocks in minutes. I'll watch NASDAQ's level II quotes to see exactly where my order sits in the queue. When it comes to looking for news, analysts' opinions, information, streaming quotes, or anything else, I stay tuned in. In fact, I've added several computers to my work area to so I can have adequate screen space. In other words, I'm a bandwidth hog. I'll burn whatever bandwidth I need to get my information.
Do you have any people like me in your organization? If you do, chances are neither you, your firewall, nor your company management has a clue. And while I hate to turn in the goods on my gambling brethren, I want to warn you that your company could be losing valuable bandwidth and user productivity without knowing it. Day trading often represents a big problem for corporations, and there aren't any simple solutions.
Online stock trading started in 1997 and shows a geometric growth curve. Most major brokerage firms allow individuals to "push the enter key" on stock transactions. A report released by U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray says the staggering growth of new online accounts—about 1.8 million new accounts per quarter—continues to add new volume to markets. And Dataquest studies reveal that rapid online trading is spreading to Europe and Asia.
Whether it's for a brief balances check, or a session that takes the better part of a workday, your employees could be using their desktop PCs to monitor the market instead of doing their jobs.
