Even though internet speed and data transfer mostly revolve around bandwidth, your internet speed can also be different from the internet bandwidth expectations. Internet speed is a major vice to any internet user. They are simply looking for a bigger hose to put more information through in order to satisfy and extinguish the ever-present demand (fire) for more information. This is why most companies are moving away from the typical dial-up service and into either DSL, Cable Modem, Satellite or T1 service. This hose then connects to the central office of the telephone company or a bigger spigot, much like the fire hydrant. In other words, more frequencies equal a bigger hose. The more frequencies or channels, the more information can be transmitted. Each channel can then be used to transmit information. These frequencies can then be divided into channels. In telecommunications, broadband refers to a system capable of carrying a relatively wide range of frequencies. These services can be likened to the fire companies’ hoses and the fire hydrant. At that point, there is not enough capacity in the typical phone line to handle the additional information that must be moved through the system. Now this works well until we introduce data into the equation. These slices are limited with bandpass filters (think spigot).

The phone company actually breaks the electromagnetic spectrum into 4-kHz slices. The more information being sent, the more bandwidth is necessary.Ī typical analog telephone line requires 3-kHz to handle voice communications. Bandwidth is the range of frequencies that can be carried across a given transmission channel. OK, How Does This Answer “What is Bandwidth?”īandwidth is similar to this.

A larger hose and pipe are needed to get adequate flow to do the job. Even opened up to its fullest, the garden hose can not allow enough volume through it to put out the fire. Now imagine our house fire situation again. The control mechanisms help to avoid waste. If more were allowed to flow through, we may experience flooding or over saturation. What are the purposes of these constraints? To help control the flow of water through the system. You can open or close the spigot to increase or decrease the desired flow. The spigot acts as the final control mechanism. This is usually even smaller in diameter, so flow is restricted even more. It only allows a certain amount to flow through it. This is actually a regulated flow, with a number of control mechanisms.įirst, there is the diameter of the water pipe. Now let’s get back to our garden hose of telecommunications. Even more importantly, they don’t come and hook their hoses up to your outside spigot, do they? No, they use the large pipes connected to the local fire hydrant. You need a large diameter hose such as that used by your local fire department. Your little garden hose won’t be of much help in this instance. If we have a regular garden hose, we should be able to get enough volume of water through it to put the fire out. The larger the pipe, the more information that can be passed through it.Īssume that there is a small campfire. Bandwidth is the pipe or hose of the communications industry. Now apply the same concept to telecommunications. However, did more volume of water actually flow through the pipe? It depends on the size. By constricting a pipe, one can cause water to be expelled very rapidly. The bigger the pipe or hose, the larger the volume of water that you can put through it. That is as a unit of measurement that represents the rate at which data or bits of information may be transmitted through a system. We will use the term as it is most commonly referred to in reference to the internet.

For our discussion, we will be speaking of bandwidth in terms of business communication solutions.Įven here the term can be misleading. In optics, it is the width of an individual spectral line or the entire spectral range. When it comes to radio, bandwidth often refers to wavelength. Bandwidth can refer to many things depending on the application being discussed.

Bandwidth in communication