Detecting Bandwidth Quality for Live Video Streaming

Hi,

We have an application that is using FMS to  share slides (swf,jpg, etc) with another client. We added a video as an option. We would like to verify as often as possible the bandwidth quality between communications in order to suggest the user to close video if we notice bandwidth is not optimal.

We've been experimenting doing a bandwidth detection every 60 seconds, but I am wondering if there are specific guidelines to do this for live video, like how many times one should verify bandwidth? Is it ok to take one reading or should we take a few readings and then average out?

Taking into consideration that every time we test bandwidth fms seems to flood the connection to figure out the bandwidth, I was wondering if anyone has some insight into this.

Kind regards.

+LA