End user bandwidth conservation: What can Internet end users do?

Abstract

Bandwidth conservation by personal computer end users appears to be a concept that has received little attention. The focus of bandwidth conservation activity has been on items such as the establishment of mirror sites, proxy servers and institutional caching, or on techniques to be employed by Web page developers to reduce network traffic caused by icons and other graphic objects. This paper explains bandwidth in non-technical terms and why its conservation is important. It lists actions that can be taken by computer end users on the Internet in the interest of conserving bandwidth.