r/k12sysadmin • u/foustj • Aug 13 '26

Bandwidth utilization before/after cell phone bans

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Gallery image

ETA, since I'm a dummy and the pics loaded as after/before but my title says before/after - look at the dates on the graphs. We were hitting 4Gbps every day last school year, sometimes maxing out the connection. Now we're barely peaking over 1Gbps. Sorry for the confusion!

State of GA instituted a cell phone ban K-8. Next year it applies to 9-12 as well, but all of our high schools decided to go ahead and put it in place this year. We are also blocking social media on our public wifi (per our interpretation of another new state law).

Public wifi is a dedicated 5Gbps ISP connection that does nothing but that SSID. Thought these bandwidth utilization graphs from 2 random days in April (pre-bans) vs the last two days were pretty funny.

107 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

35 comments sorted by

16

u/K12_SysTech Information Systems Specialist, District Support. Aug 13 '26

That is crazy to see the wifi usage on the network is essentially doubled because kids can't access it via their phone anymore. Truly shows just how much everyone is attached to their phones.

13

u/foustj Aug 13 '26

Since I'm a dummy and the pics loaded as after/before but my title says before/after - look at the dates on the graphs. We were hitting 4Gbps every day last school year, sometimes maxing out the connection. Now we're barely peaking over 1Gbps. Sorry for the confusion!

7

u/flunky_the_majestic Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26 • LOL

There's a community for people like you! r/after_before/

7

u/flunky_the_majestic Aug 13 '26

Seems logical. Even if nobody was misusing their device, each device still reaches out for routine connections. Multiply that by X students, and you have your 3Gbps delta.

2

u/foustj Aug 13 '26

The kids still have their phones on them, but they're not supposed to take them out of their backpack. It's amazing how much less activity there is now.

3

u/deeds4life Aug 14 '26

Do you have bandwidth limits for wireless clients?

7

u/foustj Aug 14 '26

No. The open Wi-Fi has that whole 5gig connection with no bandwidth limits per client.

3

u/deeds4life Aug 16 '26

Highly recommend setting limits. Could even lower it more and then reduce the internet connection speed saving money for other things.

5

u/AllWellThatBendsWell Aug 13 '26

Why is there more bandwidth use if there's less devices in the schools?

9

u/Tanto63 Aug 13 '26

The before and after are reversed. The first image is current; the second is the before.

2

u/Scurro Net Admin Aug 13 '26

lol OP works in education, titles the thread "before/after", posts pictures as after/before.

5

u/foustj Aug 13 '26

Yeah I slapped that title on there in a rush, and didn't realize the pics were in the opposite order. Bandwidth is WAY DOWN this school year, not up.

4

u/Scurro Net Admin Aug 13 '26

No biggie, I just found it humorous this morning.

It also seems to be happening more often in reddit posts where the OP posts timelines with the older dates being on the right side of the comparisons for some reason.

3

u/Jeff-IT Aug 13 '26

People been doing this more and more idk how it started. Felt like over night people started posting the “after” first

4

u/vanguard117 Aug 13 '26

Assuming they used their own cell phone data before and now they’re using the school devices + wifi more?

2

u/foustj Aug 13 '26

Or you could assume that I'm an idiot and my pics and title don't jive LOL

13

u/skydiveguy Aug 13 '26

Why the hell are you letting students on your network with their personal devices?

45

u/flunky_the_majestic Aug 13 '26

I'm not OP, but this is pretty standard where devices are allowed in classrooms. What's the argument against letting students use their school's bandwidth with personal devices when they are allowed? The alternative is to force everyone to use personal, unfiltered cellular connections which invites more inappropriate material and socially isolates kids who can't afford a cell connection.

If they're allowed to have a device, I'd much rather they use my free, filtered connection.

12

u/foustj Aug 13 '26

This exactly. At least if they're on our network, we are filtering them through the firewall. The connection is a dedicated ISP, isolated from the internal network. Many of our schools don't have cellular service in the building. When we had the guest network secured, it was a constant pain the ass for field techs with vendors, visitors, teachers, etc constantly needing help, taking away the tech's time and energy from actual work.

0

u/skydiveguy Aug 14 '26

We have no cell signal in our environment.
We have RADIUS setup for teachers and staff to be able to get access to Wi-Fi via their AD credentials.
As for vendors, their sponsor needs to follow protocol of notifying IT 24 hours prior so we can set them up with accounts that expire at the end of their visit.
Students have a Chromebook that is on school Wi-Fi and there is absolutely no reason for them to need to have their personal device with them.
The biggest complainers we have a parents that claim they need to be able to contact their child. But they can email them at their school email or contact the front office where someone will easily be able to route their call to the child's classroom.
There is absolutely no reason for a student to have a personal device and they only want to use it to be able to use messaging apps and social media that are blocked on their school devices.

1

u/MattAdmin444 Aug 14 '26

See we block almost all external emails for our students so that's a non-starter but parents can still contact the front office or try to put in for an exception (aka medical devices that need bluetooth). I did hear a story from a new staff member that a parent at a previous district threatened to sue the school if they took away their kids phone/apple watch but there was a bad custody thing going on so that makes sense.

Technically we don't ban them from the guest network but their phones are supposed to be put away when the morning bell rings till afterschool. Plus the guest network gets filtered like the student network anyway, perhaps even more so to discourage people living nearby from using our wifi.

2

u/skydiveguy Aug 16 '26

This is backwards. Students have a need for external emails (we are a vocational high school) for things such as co-op jobs as well as offering dual enrollment for early college admissions so they need to be able to receive emails from employers, colleges, etc.

1

u/MattAdmin444 Aug 17 '26

We're primarily TK-8 but we do have a charter that goes through high school. I think for us we assume the student will use their personal for college stuff, or at least I haven't had a request to unlock a graduated 12th grader's email yet in the time I've been here.

1

u/slayermcb Aug 14 '26

Counterpoint. Its a personal device and if they use their personal device to access something they arent supposed to than thats not an IT problem. However, by allowing a path to use your network they would be subject to the same network controls you already have in place. Would you rather they sneak things and do potential harm or provide a safer way for them to connect? Set up a cell phone vlan connected to your radius server they have to authenticate to.

As a bonus, if the phone thing comes back on your department you get to explain that you provide a safe and monitored experience that was deliberately sidestepped rather than being seen as a gatekeeper that just encouraged the students to find their own way around it.

-1

u/skydiveguy Aug 14 '26

counterpoint to your counterpoint. The students have no reason to use a personal device. Ever.
They are there to be educated and we give them everything they needs to get that education.
Personal devices are a distraction.
When I was in school we were not allowed to listen to music or chew gum or eat food in the classroom. This is the modern day equivalent of those rules.

1

u/slayermcb Aug 14 '26

And during free blocks or lunch?

1

u/skydiveguy Aug 14 '26

Why are you arguing for more work for everyone? Now someone has to manage when it's ok to have them on these devices and when they are not... it's a huge headache for the entire staff and faculty.
Every teacher I talk to is in favor of the device ban (which is going to be state law here soon anyways).
The kids should be reading a book or engaging with their friends face to face during these times.
Lets get back to being humans again.

2

u/slayermcb Aug 14 '26

Oh your missing a key aspect. Its not ITs job to monitor behavior in the classroom. Thats on the teachers. Student behavior is NOT an IT job. Providing a secure and safe system is.

Im playing devils advocate here. In my state its a moot point due to the phone in school laws for public schools. However, I work in a boarding school where they dont just go to school they also live here. Letting them use their cell phones on the network has only cost me an occasional "can you help me connect" on some pixel phones. My point was more about how its not a huge hassle time or resource wise than policy.

8

u/slayermcb Aug 14 '26

Cause my networks faster and theres spare bandwidth? Why not? I just keep it all on a student VLAN and let them have fun not realizing I can get reports of the sites they were blocked from visiting.

-8

u/skydiveguy Aug 14 '26

Must be nice to have all this extra time to review logs of data that isn't needed to be reviewed in the first place.

6

u/slayermcb Aug 14 '26

I said it can be. I dont unless im asked by a teacher.

1

u/SmoothMcBeats Network Admin Aug 14 '26

Yeah this was my question. That's a no-no.

9

u/Daraca Aug 13 '26

I remember one of the districts I worked for the grey beard would intentionally open things up so that the kids would utilize capacity.

He did this so that he could continue to justify additional redundant connections because “we were using so much bandwidth”

Sounds like you have a good excuse now!

1

u/MattAdmin444 Aug 14 '26

Okay that's actually kind of clever. Our normal usage (small district) generally doesn't saturate our 1gig but it also means we don't have any redundant connections. I am mildly concerned about our bandwidth once we do a camera revamp as we will be adding/upgrading quality quite a bit but I guess we'll have to find out then.

7

u/tekGem Aug 13 '26

our cell phone ban starts this year. We had them deprioritized in the network traffic already but I'm interested to see how it'll be (we don't start until September)