Bandwidth is a term used to describe how much information can be transmitted over a connection. Bandwidth is usually given as bits per second, or as some larger denomination of bits, such as Megabits per second, expressed as kbit/s or Mbit/s. Bandwidth is a gross measurement, taking the total amount of data transferred in a given period of time as a rate, without taking into consideration the quality of the signal itself.

Throughput can be looked at as a subset of bandwidth that takes into account whether data was successfully transmitted or not. While the bandwidth of a connection might be quite high, if the signal loss is also high, then the throughput of the connection will remain somewhat low. Conversely, even a relatively low-bandwidth connection can have a moderately high throughput if the signal quality is also high.

Bandwidth is most familiar to consumers because of its use by hosting companies or internet service providers. The sense in which bandwidth is used by most web hosting companies, that is, as a measure of total data transferred in a month, is not strictly correct. This measurement is more rightly referred to as data transfer, but the use of bandwidth by hosting companies is so pervasive that it has become accepted by the general public.

Many hosting providers place caps on the amount of bandwidth a site can transfer in a given period of time, usually a month, but sometimes twenty-four hours or a week. If the site exceeds its bandwidth allotment, the service is usually either suspended or else additional bandwidth is billed separately, often at a much higher cost than the base cost included with the hosting plan.

Some hosts offer so-called unlimited bandwidth plans, which in theory have an unlimited amount of data transfer per month. Usually the actual bandwidth, that is the per-second transfer of a connection, is somewhat limited on these services, ensuring data transfer for the site never becomes too large. If the bandwidth limit is met, speeds for users may be throttled down substantially, or service may even be interrupted.

In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth or digital bandwidth, is a bit rate measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it (kilobits/s, megabits/s etc).

Note that in textbooks on data transmission, digital communications, wireless communications, electronics, etc, bandwidth refers to analog signal bandwidth measured in hertz - the original meaning of the term. Some computer networking authors prefer less ambiguous terms such as bit rate, channel capacity and throughput rather than bandwidth in bit/s, to avoid this confusion.

Hi

Most hosting companies offer a variety of bandwidth options in their plans. So exactly what is bandwidth as it relates to web hosting? Put simply, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that is allowed to occur between your web site and the rest of the internet. The amount of bandwidth a hosting company can provide is determined by their network connections, both internal to their data center and external to the public internet.

Network Connectivity

The internet, in the most simplest of terms, is a group of millions of computers connected by networks. These connections within the internet can be large or small depending upon the cabling and equipment that is used at a particular internet location. It is the size of each network connection that determines how much bandwidth is available. For example, if you use a DSL connection to connect to the internet, you have 1.54 Mega bits (Mb) of bandwidth. Bandwidth therefore is measured in bits (a single 0 or 1). Bits are grouped in bytes which form words, text, and other information that is transferred between your computer and the internet.

If you have a DSL connection to the internet, you have dedicated bandwidth between your computer and your internet provider. But your internet provider may have thousands of DSL connections to their location. All of these connection aggregate at your internet provider who then has their own dedicated connection to the internet (or multiple connections) which is much larger than your single connection. They must have enough bandwidth to serve your computing needs as well as all of their other customers. So while you have a 1.54Mb connection to your internet provider, your internet provider may have a 255Mb connection to the internet so it can accommodate your needs and up to 166 other users (255/1.54).

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Hi

The Internet consists of tens of millions of computers throughout the world, all connected by cables. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) is a company that has a very high-speed (and very expensive) connection to the Internet. Your ISP makes its money by renting little "chunks" of that high-speed connection to consumers who don't want to spend thousands of dollars each month for an Internet connection.

If you've ever wondered why it takes so long to download certain Web pages or other files to your computer, it's all determined by the bandwidth of the connection between your computer and your Internet Service Provider. Which is to say, it all hinges on that wire connecting your computer to your modem to your ISP.

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