What is the User Bandwidth Requirement for using Platform3?

User Bandwidth Requirements

Platform3 has been designed to use as little bandwidth as possible, so that you can use the system adequately with broadband, dial-up, and wireless connections.

Platform3 supports compression as defined in the HTTP 1.1 standard to compress the HTML content before it is transmitted as data across the Internet to a user's computer.

1. This compression often reduces the amount of transmitted data to as little as 10KB per page viewed due to the lack of image content. Platform3 was designed with minimum bandwidth requirements in mind, hence the extensive use of colour coding instead of images. It is best to measure any page that has been customized, especially if complex components have been added to the page, to get an accurate measurement of the page size.
2. Platform3 is stateless, so there are no communication requirements in the background, once the page loads and no additional bandwidth is required until the user sends a request or information back to Platform3.
3. Other commonly used programs place a much higher demand on Internet bandwidth. For instance, email, email attachments, streaming videos, can all place a much greater strain on the available bandwidth.
4. The application of the formula "peak bandwidth / number of users = average bandwidth per user" does not accurately portray the average bandwidth usage by the average user at SmartSimple. Platform3 handles considerably more transactions per second in aggregate from all our clients than any one individual client would see from their end.

In summary, it is difficult to specify client bandwidth because of the nature of the Internet and individual client usage. Network latency, peering issues, bandwidth at upstream providers, users using their Internet connections for other purpose besides Platform3 etc. will affect the perceived performance of the connection. SmartSimple recommends engaging a networking professional to help measure, allocate, and monitor appropriate bandwidth and networking resources.