Bandwidth is a term that is both ambiguous and frequently discussed. In layman’s terms, bandwidth is the amount of traffic that occurs between the Internet and a web site and is determined by the network connections of the hosting company. Bandwidth is the amount of the wire used to transfer data between these two places therefore the bigger the bandwidth quota, the more information may be transferred. It is measure in bits, bytes, kilobytes, megabytes and gigabytes with the standard bandwidth period being one second. When discussing bandwidth quota, you will hear it referred to as the measure (kilobytes, megabytes, etc.) per second.

How does this relate to web server hosting?

Traffic

If one compares the Internet to a traditional road, bandwidth is the number of lanes on the road while traffic is the number of cars. When only one car is on this road, it can go at a faster rate. When there is a great deal of traffic though, the car may be forced to wait an extended period of time to enter the road. The same is true of information on the Internet. The more that needs to be transferred over the Internet, the more crowded the bandwidth becomes which is why companies which need to provide a great deal of information in a short period of time choose to make use of high bandwidth server hosting.

Hosting Bandwidth

Any time someone visits a website, traffic is created as the web page must download to the computer and then display in the brower. Both steps create traffic on the ‘road’ and the amount of traffic created is based on the size of the web page along with other features such as the number and quality of images, videos and things of that nature. The more a site has on each page, the more bandwidth will be needed to share it.

Network Connectivity

The Internet is nothing more than millions of computers which are connected through the use of networks. The connections are both large and small and the size of the connection determines the amount of bandwidth available. The Internet Service Provider has an Internet connection that is at a much higher speed that what the average user gets. The reason for this is web server hosting provides service to many customers which means their Internet connection speed must be divided amongst these customers.

Traffic and Bandwidth

Many use these terms interchangeably and yet they are two different things. The data itself is actually the traffic that is being created while the speed and file size at which this information is transferred is the bandwidth. Many web hosts put bandwidth into their service agreements when they are in fact referring to the amount of traffic received. When choosing a high bandwidth server hosting, look at both the speed of transfer and the amount of data which may be transferred as they are actually two different things.

Clint Reeves is the Content Marketing Manager for 100TB.com, a global web hosting services provider. Clint is an expert on web server hosting and has been working in the hosting industry for several years. Clint recommends visiting 100TB.com to find out more about high bandwidth server hosting and its benefits.