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Guys! Curiosity Poll

What do you think about free internet access to employees in a company?

Internet Access to Employees
  • Good, employees work better with liberty
  • Good, but with control. Not everything can be accessed
  • Bad. They have to work, not surf internet.
  • Depends. Production no, administration yes.
  • Limited to specific sites, full access as needed by individual
  • Already available on workstations
  • Good, but policed to filter bad/malicious/nefarious stuff on infected BYOD devicies
0 voters
16 Spice ups
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Provide it because it can be a great tool. Just block things that can be harmful. If they’re abusing their time on the internet, that’s a management issue.

3 Spice ups
3

In a regular office environment where there can be work requirements for access as well as acceptable downtime, it’s great. there are other instances where it’s just a bad Idea.

1 Spice up
4

Lol. We actually changed the Guest Wifi password during the Olympics and productivity plummeted. Management did not want users to stream the Olympics on their phones during business hours.

Guest Wifi is open and routed directly out.

Company Wifi is controlled via RADIUS and NPS.

1 Spice up
5

Imagine here in Brazil. It’s amazing be the host of such a huge event!

6

Internet access is a great tool. Use it until it becomes a problem.

Allow it through a proxy server:

https://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/128459-how-to-install-squid-proxy-on-centos-7-with-webmin-apache-and-sarg

You can set it up to allow everything and only block specific categories.

The great thing about it is the logging. If you see problem sites for specific workstations or users, you can either block it or confront them.

1 Spice up
7

I say allow it. ALWAYS have an AUP in place to govern things. Block certain categories as they are unrelated to anything work or anything appropriate for work. Seriously. It’s pretty simple.

I know that they can be more productive when they have access, but I don’t want folks bogging down the network with streaming media, wasting hours chitchatting on Facebook, potentially introducing malware through some messenger app or personal e-mail,

Stuff that needs to be blocked are things that management/legal/HR approves. NOT blocking certain sites opens up a potential liability for the company that could cost them big time in the end. The sole decision for this doesn’t come from IT. Management is responsible for employee productivity.

1 Spice up
8

We allow our employees access to our WiFi for $1 a week. Most use this to stream audio as it is nearly impossible to get any radio stations in our buildings. The cost they pay helps cover our extra costs for additional bandwidth and administration. Their access is filtered by categories, but most are open.

They are much happier, music soothes the savage beasts!!

1 Spice up
9

I would say to allow it, it can make employee happy and can improve their productivity perhaps . Just make sure you have bandwidth capping tools don’t let all the audio/youtube streaming dry up bandwidth for business

1 Spice up
10

I think it isn’t a decision for IT but that in any sane environment where the assumption is that you’re paying staff to be professional you allow access with technical controls to restrict things that are a security risk, and back it up with business controls (policies, AUPs etc.) to make clear what the boundaries are i.e. A technical policy will stop you visiting a malware site but the AUP you agree to means you agree not to spend all day on eBay or whatever.

11

Unless they need it as part of their job, our employees don’t get internet access. Management made that call and we enforce it.

1 Spice up
12

It’s worth remembering that the company is responsible in the first instance for any nefarious activity that happens on it.

1 Spice up
13

Wait, you mean you charge them for internet access now?

14

it’s been a while where i’ve seen a company deny internet access across the board, I would say it’s almost expected. It does however need to be at least filtered to make sure nothing illegal happens, just to protect the company.
Anything else is a management issue for the user’s line manager to tell if they’re abusing it.

15

No. I don’t think it’s fair charge them for internet access. Or they have it or don’t.

16

Ok…so I don’t quite understand your question. Is it possible you need to rephrase it?

17

Sorry, I’m not a native english speaker. By free, I mean use it freely, without restrictions, not free of charge.

18

Ah, ok, gotcha. There is not a specific answer to this, for each business will be different. As you being an MSP for different companies, you will be best to assess each companies usage separately. Some may have employees just going berzerk on doing internet stuff as opposed to getting their work done as another may not have any issues at all.
There are those that have to pay for their usage and need to then consider who does what, where, when and why. These types are best to have internet filtering in place, time of day access etc.

And of course there are more in between, but this general guidance should suffice.

But again, you’re going to have to assess each company on their own merits.

1 Spice up
19

+1 for limiting access. We’ve been hit with various viruses from users going onto dodgy sites and/or downloading infected documents (cd viewers, variations on winzip). As a result we quickly limited access.

We use WebMarshall to limit what can be accessed. As a user comes across a site they need, we look into it, to make sure it’s legit and work related. If this criteria is met we can unblock the website but we always put a comment on the side saying who requested it.

For the most part this works well, as the users have access to what they need for work, not what they necessarily want (social media, etc). We also have separate groups within WebMarshall for say our marketing department, who need social media access.

1 Spice up
20

Allow access until one persons ruins it for everyone!

1 Spice up