Cancer Research frees up internet data jam

Charity improves web traffic speed without increasing bandwidth

Cancer Research UK’s internet traffic regulation project is speeding up internal communications without needing to increase the network bandwidth.

The charity’s 35-site national network was becoming clogged by non-business information, and critical data was not getting through. But rather than buying more capacity, Cancer Research UK is using software from supplier Packeteer to prioritise business traffic.

‘The lines were getting clogged up,’ said Cancer Research UK project manager Jane Swindle.

‘Traffic was being dropped and the network was trying to resend it, so we were not getting full capacity and information was not getting through.’

The Packeteer system regulates incoming and outgoing internet traffic. It allows Cancer Research to prioritise critical information by identifying certain types of traffic, such as MSN and iTunes, and restricting the amount of bandwidth they are allowed to use.

‘We decided the most practical and economical solution was to purchase a device that could control the traffic from our London headquarters,’ said Swindle.

‘We needed a cost-effective solution to plug in between us and the BT network to be able to control the amount of traffic that we were sending.

‘You can set a limit as to how much bandwidth you are going to send out to each of your sites, and program it to send as much as your link to that site can handle, so no information gets dropped,’ she said.

By managing its own quality of service, rather than relying on BT, the charity is saving about £3,000 per year, says Swindle.

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