backwards incompatability!

Our office just recently put restrictions on internet access.The reason cited was that open access was taking up valuable bandwidth thus resulting in less than favorable performance of our in house application systems. But even  after restrictions were put into place, there was no noticeable improvement in the performance of our systems. What does that tell us? That there are no shortage of idiots in the office? A simple study of our IT and network infrastucture would show that our systems passes through a dedicated line (leased line) different from our internet which passes through a different one. So theoretically, one line would not have a bearing on the other. There goes the bandwidth defense.
Knowing this basic set up, a competent network manager would study other points of traffic to solve the congestion. And it is almost always not about the bandwidth, it's the "throughput" stupid, the ease in which data transfer occurs. We can have the biggest bandwidth available but if our internal network is full of fault points, congestion will always be the end result.
Putting restrictions on internet runs contrary to the very concept of it. The net is the new global arena and social networking sites such as facebook and twitter are some of its biggest players. These sites may have started as social interaction pages but has evolved into a global marketplace of sorts. It is now being used as a business, political and marketing tool even by some government agencies such as dti and pnp and even by our President. I am glad that they realized its potential but doubly sad that our office do not. Change is the only constant in this world, and adapting to change is a must, lest we go the way of dinosaurs, extinct. I just hope that our bosses wake up from their jurrasic slumber and see the light, not drag the whole office towards it.