What is Bandwidth?

Many different sites define bandwidth slightly different than others, but the overall consensus is that it is the complete range of frequencies over which a circuit or electronic system is allocated to function. Now to be honest reading that probably doesn't help you too much with understanding what exactly is bandwidth, now does it? Well let's take it a step further.

More than likely you are trying to figure what is bandwidth in regards to choosing a web hosting company to host your website or dedicated server. In relation to that, let's just say it is the amount of "traffic" or "data" that can be transferred within a given month. Let's say you found Web Host A, and they are offering 50 GIGs of bandwidth per month. What that simply means is that you are limited to that amount of data transfer per month, and if exceeded your site can be suspended or depending on the host you would be billed for the extra bandwidth used.

For example, every graphic within your website has a "size", every time that image is loaded the "size" of that graphic uses some of your allocated bandwidth. If the image was for example 20K in size, and 5 users loaded that image within one hour, then that image used 100K of your allocated bandwidth. Most hosts reset your bandwidth every month, so you know that at the end of each month you'll have a fresh start.

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