IM BORED

DUMMIES guide to bandwidth

by Matt Chapman on Apr.27, 2010, under Uncategorized

Bandwidth is a measure of the amount of data passing through a network at a given time. Things like huge images on web pages and needless questions posted to Usenet newsgroups waste bandwidth which could be better utilized for transferring information.

In computer networks, bandwidth is often used as a synonym for data transfer rateĀ  the amount of data that can be carried from one point to another in a given time period usually a second. This kind of bandwidth is usually expressed in bits (of data) per second (bps). Occasionally, it’s expressed as bytes per second (Bps). A modem that works at 57,600 bps has twice the bandwidth of a modem that works at 28,800 bps. In general, a link with a high bandwidth is one that may be able to carry enough information to sustain the succession of images in a video presentation.

It should be remembered that a real communications path usually consists of a succession of links, each with its own bandwidth. If one of these is much slower than the rest, it is said to be a bandwidth bottleneck.


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