Bandwidth requirements

[lewism]

In your faq, you have the following information which gives no idea of real time bandwidth, only accumulated.
Can support please give more information on actual required bandwidth for real time use.
Maybe something more real world like if you have 10 users, 50 users, 100 users all chatting at the same time, averages of total bandwidth required.

Thank you.

---
10. What's the bandwidth necessary for running 123 flash chat server software?

ex: for 20 people in one room and 1 message sent by one of the users every 10 second,
if the average size of messages is 100 bytes, then the server needs a bandwidth of (20 messages sent to users every 10 seconds)*100 bytes/10 s *8 = 1.6 k bps.
That means if you have about 20 people chat a lot in your chat room,
Bandwidth per day: 86400 x 1.6 k =135M
Bandwidth per month: 135 X30 =4.05G
You can see usually you don't have to worry about bandwidth with 123 Flash Chat.

[lewism]

The reply is exactly the same as in the faq.

>Ans: As you know, the message size is not a exact value, so we can only estimate the >bandwidth, I think you can easily calculate the banswidth as the following formula. Thanks!

>ex: for 20 people in one room and 1 message sent by one of the users every 10 second,
>if the average size of messages is 100 bytes, then the server needs a bandwidth of (20 >messages sent to users every 10 seconds)*100 bytes/10 s *8 = 1.6 k bps.

Ok, so, 1.6 kbits/s for 20 users as above.

>That means if you have about 20 people chat a lot in your chat room,
>Bandwidth per day: 86400 x 1.6 k =135M

So do you mean that this is in fact 1.6kbs in real time then?

>You can see usually you don't have to worry about bandwidth with 123 Flash Chat.

You always have to worry about bandwidth, this is audio/video after all. I think you're only talking about text but I'm asking about A/V.

[admin]

You always have to worry about bandwidth, this is audio/video after all. I think you're only talking about text but I'm asking about A/V.

I'm sorry that I misunderstood you, let me explain the bandwidth necessary for the A/V chat.

It also depends on how many webcams does each user open, and the number of concurrent users.

In the default circumstance, one webcam uses 8KB/s bandwidth, it's 64kbps.

For example, in the chat room, there are always about 10 persons online, and each person open 3 webcams, then one month, the bandwidth is 64kbps*10*3*3600*24*30=497664000kbps=59.3G

[admin]

So do you mean that this is in fact 1.6kbs in real time then?

YES. It is.

[lewism]

Originally Posted by admin

I'm sorry that I misunderstood you, let me explain the bandwidth necessary for the A/V chat.

It also depends on how many webcams does each user open, and the number of concurrent users.

In the default circumstance, one webcam uses 8KB/s bandwidth, it's 64kbps.

For example, in the chat room, there are always about 10 persons online, and each person open 3 webcams, then one month, the bandwidth is 64kbps*10*3*3600*24*30=497664000kbps=59.3G

Ok, so, can I make the assumption that every instance of video costs 8KB/s at all times.
So, say I log in, fire up my own video, that's one instance.
I watch someone else, that's two.
I watch yet another, that's three.
Each of those people might also have three, they have theirs plus they have two more.

So in total, that would be, in real time bandwidth;

me = 8KB/s + 8KB/s + 8KB/s = 24KB/s
User one = 8KB/s + 8KB/s + 8KB/s = 24KB/s
User two = 8KB/s + 8KB/s + 8KB/s = 24KB/s

Total number of streams = 9
Total amount of real time bandwidth needed is; 72KB/s

I'm only talking video or does this make a general assumption of other things going on also?

[lewism]

Separate quick question since I never noticed in manual yet. Can bandwidth be adjusted higher or lower?

Is there any way of making just one room very high bandwidth while keeping others at say a default. That would be something I could very much use.

Thanks.

[admin]

Hi Lewism,

Yes, according to your assumption, the result of bandwidth should be 72KB/s.

Regarding to adjust bandwidth for each room, I'm sorry to say that our chat cannot change. Anyway, it is a pretty cool idea and we are so appreciated.

We are continuously developing our products to meet our customers' needs. This is exactly why feedback such as yours is always valuable.

[lewism]

So, basically a third of a T1 for 3 users with a total of 9 streams?
A ten MB pipe would only handle around 35/40 users?

I can see how the bandwidth will add up very quickly so it's good to better understand this ahead of time.

Yes, some bandwidth controls, especially if one were able to make specific rooms different bandwidth, that would be very useful.

Thank you.

[admin]

If 50 users are using video at once and everyone is watching two users, we need 1.17MB/s Bandwidth (24kb/s*50=1200KB/s). In general, your assumption will not happen because user prefer to 1 to 1.

Thanks for your inquiry. If you have any other question, please let me know.

[lewism]

Originally Posted by admin

If 50 users are using vedio at once and everyone is watching two users, we need 1.17MB/s Bandwidth (24kb/s*50=1200KB/s). In general, your assumption will not happen because user prefer to 1 to 1.

Thanks for your inquiry. If you have any other question, please let me know.

So if I were using say T1's as a comparison, then around SIX T1's for only 50 users.
That is not 'very little bandwidth', that is big time $$$.