tag:ask-leo.com,2009://3/tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411- 2009-11-18T17:50:14Z Comments for What is bandwidth? Movable Type 4.25 tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32178 Comment from Walt Webb on 2009-01-29 Walt Webb http://unspecified Thanks Leo your explanation was helpful in trying to get the meaning of bandwidth. I had just exceeded it on my blog a day or so ago. Must have been the two videos I had on my post about fighting in hockey.
Walt AKA All Sports on the Web
All Sports on the Web

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A comment on: What is bandwidth?

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 2009-01-30T05:24:31Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32177 Comment from Chris on 2008-06-14 Chris I don't know if one of the comments covered this, but most downloading programs show KB/s (kilo-bytes per second) and most speed tests will show kbps (kilo-bits per second)...

A byte is 8 bits, so to show your download speed, simply divide your speedtest's kbps by 8 to get KB/s...

17237 kbps = 2 MB/s Down
1615 kbps Up = 202 KB/s Upload

so kbps to mbps, divide by a meg (1000-units)
kbps to to MB/s, divide by a meg (1000-units) then divide again by a byte (8-bits)

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A comment on: What is bandwidth?

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 2008-06-14T22:51:25Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32176 Comment from Riff on 2008-06-12 Riff When I was teaching basic IT to telemarketers the best analogy I could come up with was the water system.

The bigger the pipe you have coming into your house the quicker you'd fill your kettle etc.

The original question was how does it compare so big numbers = more water = good :)

Good article

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 2008-06-12T23:25:26Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32175 Comment from Ed Vance on 2008-06-12 Ed Vance http://unspecified I used to use a Teletype(C) Machine a lot.

Way back then Bandwidth was referred as

BAUD or BAUD RATE.

Switching terms now would be confusing for those who use the term Bandwidth.

This article stayed in my mind and I just had to post a comment.

Thanks Leo for being there for us.

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 2008-06-12T16:21:39Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32174 Comment from Bevin on 2008-06-11 Bevin http://unspecified Nice article to explain this evolution in the meaning of bandwidth, although as others have noted, its use is a little confusing. Like many other technical terms, its meaning has moved beyond its original and precise interpretation. In this case the original meaning was the width of the freqency band which a channel or service can utilise. The natural consequence of the higher frequencies used in our data communications is that a channel can have a wider bandwidth but it is essentially the higher frequency that allows for data to be transmitted faster. Hence the consequence of the faster data rates has become synonymous with the term higher bandwidth. Ah well, it would be a most difficult language to use when explaining new technology if it were not allowed to evolve, however far it strays in meaning.

And another pedanticism I highlight is that when talking about data rates, the convention is to use 'bits' not 'bytes' as the units. Hence the attempt by IT engineers to standardise on the lower case b to mean bits and the upper case B to mean bytes. I guess this is too subtle to survive in general use.

And while we are talking about conventions, the prefixes Kilo and Mega when used in computer jargon, are not the same as the standard international prefixes of the same names. The international units (SI units) mean 1,000 (10^3) and 1,000,000 (10^6) but computerspeak has them meaning 1,024 and 1,048,576. Hence KBytes (or Kbits) has 1,024 bytes (or bits), and similarly for MBytes (or Mbits). These values are the result of the binary unit (bit) having two values, 0 or 1.

Hence a byte (consisting of 8 bits) can have 2^8 = 256 distinct values; ie, the number of states (2) raised to the power of the number of bits (8). This 1,024 =2^10 and 1,048,576 =2^20

I am sure you are aware of these facts Leo and that you chose not to confuse people with the details. I guess I am a purist, and think it important that if people are wanting to learn about using computers, then they are intelligent and motivated enough to be told some of the basic facts.

Please keep your enthusiasm for your site, it is excellent source of information.

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 2008-06-12T06:17:19Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32173 Comment from Leo on 2008-06-11 Leo -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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Derek: there are various speed testing sites around. My
favorite is http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ but there
are others.

Leo


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 2008-06-11T22:57:08Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32172 Comment from Leo on 2008-06-11 Leo -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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T-1 is 1.5 megaBITS, not bytes. Cable users can easily get
bursts of 17,237 kbps without paying thousands. (FIOS users
can do even better.) Yes DSL can go as high as 6mbps, I
quoted basic DSL - the slowest - which is 768kbps.

All the costs depend on your ISP and location.

So, I'm still not sure what all the errors you refer to are.

Leo


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 2008-06-11T22:56:08Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32171 Comment from George Sella on 2008-06-11 George Sella This is laughable. So many errors.
T1 is 1.5 Megabytes no megabits. It is writen with a capital M. T1 cost about $360 a month (Speakeasy). Basic DSL cost about $15 a month (ATT)and will bring a speed of 96KBps or 768 kbps.
You can get speed up to 6.mbps (6000kbps or 750KBps) for $35 a month.
T1 is about 15 times faster than basic DSL.
In order to getr speed of 17237 kbps one has to shell out a thousand dollars a month!!

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A comment on: What is bandwidth?

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 2008-06-11T22:37:42Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32170 Comment from Eli Coten on 2008-06-11 Eli Coten Often the high "burst" readings are inaccuracies in the way the timing is measured, because it is an average it relies on the last, lets, say, 15 seconds of transmission to show your speed. If you have only been downloading for lets say, 5 seconds, a speed calculated on the last 15 seconds is going to be erroneous - and depending on the exact calculation it may come out too high or too low.

As to the bandwidth - its the number of communication channels available at any time. So a bandwidth of 10Mbps means that there is a "wide" enough pipe/cable to transmit signals that contain 10Mbits of data in a second.

Also different technologies work differently - and different technologies are available in different countries. Whilst those speeds are typical for connections in the USA, in the UK the standard DSL connection is now 8Mbps (recently upgraded from 2Mbps). Some providers are rolling out ADSL2+ here which offers upto 24Mbps, though I'm not sure anyone actually gets that.

Cable is available in the UK at speeds between 2Mbps and 10Mbps.

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 2008-06-11T12:37:43Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32169 Comment from Derek Miles on 2008-06-10 Derek Miles I'm sure you've told us before but here goes....
How do you find out your upload and download figures ?

Great articles and thank you.

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 2008-06-11T05:20:17Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32168 Comment from David Ball on 2008-06-10 David Ball http://unspecified Two items come to mind

- First, speed tests are often poor examples of sustained download speeds. Comcast, for example, provides a much higher rate of throughput initially, then slows the download to the "rated" speed. This makes websites typically load quickly, but large files (like operating system patches) can take much longer. My cable modem is rated as 6 mbps, but will burst up to 18 mbps for typical speed tests. When I download large files, it slows back down to 6 mbps.

- Second, many websites throttle how much throughput can be sucked up by a single connection. So, even though you may have the capability to download oodles of content very quickly, the website may restrict how quickly they will send it to you.

Speed is nice, but sometimes not all it seems to be.

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 2008-06-10T19:52:06Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32167 Comment from Mike Curtin on 2008-06-10 Mike Curtin An FM station uses 10 or 20 KHz, which gives an audio range that's about as much as most people can hear.

To me, Analog vs Digital transmission is like using a real wood fire vs fake fireplace logs with gas. I get a warm glow from the familiar and I'll miss it, but the new way makes enormously more sense from an environmental and an economic sense. Sigh.

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 2008-06-10T19:31:16Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32166 Comment from Greg Bulmash on 2008-06-10 Greg Bulmash Gotta go with Alan. While the current usage of bandwidth is to describe speed of transmission or capacity (i.e. "I'll get that done tomorrow, I don't have the spare bandwidth today"), it does date back to the width of a radio band and what it could carry.

I don't see anything wrong with it evolving, though, especially when we're moving back into radio transmission with WiFi and WiMax.

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 2008-06-10T17:48:53Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32165 Comment from Alan Stein on 2008-06-10 Alan Stein http://unspecified "Bandwidth" used to refer to radio and other eletromagnetic wave phenomena. An AM radio channel (remember AM radio? 550 kHz to 1650 kHz?)was about 10 Khz wide. An FM radio channel is, I believe, about 10 mHz wide - the FM band is 88.7 mHz to 108 mHz. The greater BANDWIDTH carried higher-fidelity sound (like we need high-fidelity for Rap music?). CW (continuous wave) transmission - remember Morse Code? - needed almost no bandwidth. Since digital information is, like Morse Code, simply "on" or "off", I'm guessing that "bandwidth" is not the correct description of what's required for faster data transmission. I'm certain an electrical engineer can explain what goes through the wires and optical cables, and what permits greater speed. - Thanks - Alan

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 2008-06-10T17:01:45Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32164 Comment from Leo on 2008-06-10 Leo -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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I think the Bible's just a little older. Been using that for
decades. I wrote about it on my personal blog a while ago,
btw... http://leo.notenboom.org/2008/05/_new_unit_of_me.html

:-)

Leo


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 2008-06-10T16:19:26Z tag:ask-leo.com,2008://3.3411-comment:32163 Comment from Ken B on 2008-06-10 Ken B When you said "oldest metaphor", I thought you were going to talk about a 747 full of magtapes. :-)

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 2008-06-10T14:23:31Z