What is bandwidth?

**~pEnGuIn~** · March 20th, 2002, 16:13

Ok I know this is a stupid question, but since it's so stupid, y'all probably know the answer. But what is bandwidth and like how is it measured?

~Bethany T.

**[lhomme]** · March 20th, 2002, 16:32

Bandwidth is how much data you can transfer in a second. I believe its usually measured in bits, with a prefix (kilo,mega,giga,tera etc). Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Btw - most webhosting sites will get this mixed up with data-transfer, which is the amount of data your host (or physical limitations) will allow you to send in a certain amount of time (usually monthly).

**cheatpark** · March 20th, 2002, 16:51

Just one addition. There are 8kbit in a kilobyte.

**~pEnGuIn~** · March 23rd, 2002, 08:51

ok... so how much is sufficient for a site that's html files take about 3-5 mb of space and other files take about 5-7 mb of space and usually gets no more than 30 visitors a day?

~Bethany T.

**Daniel** · March 23rd, 2002, 10:12

Let say your site is 10mb big,

10*30*30=9000mb of data transfer a month.

Thats a rough estimate if your visitors download all the files and visit all the html pages.

**~pEnGuIn~** · March 23rd, 2002, 10:16

Hmm... though chances are they won't visit ALL the pages...

Thanks for giving me an idea of how to estimate it....

~Bethany T.

**shizzle** · March 23rd, 2002, 11:57

9000 megabytes or megabits?? I would assume megabytes according to your calculation,

**Archbob** · March 23rd, 2002, 18:23

I will give a more reasonable estimation.

I think 1GB is enough for you.

**Bruce** · March 23rd, 2002, 18:44

1 GB of data-transfer would be more than enough. I know fr a fact not every visitor is going to download 10 MB or even close to it.

**Moonman** · March 23rd, 2002, 20:35

yes, but if they do she will need about 9GB of Data Transfer.

**Bruce** · March 23rd, 2002, 20:46

But they won't, so there's no need to worry about hypotheticals.

**rochen** · March 23rd, 2002, 20:57

With reference to bandwidth in general.

If you are buying a shared hosting package it will most likely be 'x' GB/month. However if you are buying co-location space it may be measured in 'x' MBit/second.

*X where the the number would be. e.g. 2

**Moonman** · March 23rd, 2002, 21:03

Originally posted by Bruce
But they won't, so there's no need to worry about hypotheticals.

well what your saying is also a hypothetical, but it is more likely that yours is correct.

**Bruce** · March 23rd, 2002, 21:04

Originally posted by rochen
With reference to bandwidth in general.

If you are buying a shared hosting package it will most likely be 'x' GB/month.

Which is data-transfer, not bandwdith. Bandwidth is always measure in bits per second.