Bandwidth Explained
BY Hal Wirtsen
An abundant supply of bandwidth is necessary to handle
your web hosting clients whose sites have high traffic
demands.
If you don't have enough available bandwidth, the
performance of the web sites you are hosting will be
compromised. Since bandwidth is essential to the success of
your web hosting company, you must understand the basics of
what bandwidth is.
Generally, bandwidth means how much information can be
transmitted during a given period of time over a wired or a
wireless connection. Bandwidth refers to the width of the
range of frequencies that an electronic signal occupies on
a specific transmission medium.
Available bandwidth is defined as the amount of bandwidth
that is available for use by the web host. This amount is
arranged through Internet carriers. The formula is
basically: the greater the bandwidth, the faster the data
can be transmitted.
Digital and analog signals both have a bandwidth. Digital
technology is newer than analog technology, and is now used
with communication media such as satellite and fiber optic
transmission. For example, most telephone companies today
have long distance systems that are fiber optic. Fiber
optic wire carries significantly more information than
conventional copper wire. It is also significantly less
effected by electromagnetic interference.
Computers use digital information. Generally, broadcast and
local telephone transmission use analog technology. A
modem, then, is a device that converts the digital
information from your computer to analog signals for your
phone line, or converts analog signals from the phone into
digital information that your computer can process.
However, web hosting solely deals with digital information.
In digital systems, bandwidth is expressed in bits of data
per second, or bps.
In web hosting, there are certain types of applications
that can strain your available bandwidth. For example,
streaming movies and audio applications required a large
amount of available bandwidth. Additionally, hosting a site
that carries a high level of traffic can cause a potential
problem in terms of the bandwidth available for the other
web sites you are hosting. In order to avoid problems, you
must monitor your available bandwidth carefully.
Your web server enables you to monitor which web sites are
using the most resources. By monitoring this, you can make
adjustments to avoid potential problems. Ways to increase
your bandwidth availability include reserving bandwidth for
particular times in the day, installing a Fast Ethernet,
and enabling bandwidth throttling, which limits the
bandwidth used by your server, making it available for
other sites and services. You can throttle the bandwidth
used by each site you host on an individual basis, making
sure that all your hosted web sites have enough available
bandwidth.
Transmission paths use a succession of links and each link
has its own bandwidth. In web hosting, if one of the links
is slower than the rest of the links, or if your server or
connection speed is too slow, it results in what is called
a bandwidth bottleneck. Used in this sense, a bottleneck is
a link that slows down the entire system, requiring you to
find the most effective solution.
Web hosting uses what is called broadband (or wideband).
This refers to a wide band of frequencies that are
available to transmit information. Using a broadband allows
for information to be sent on many different frequencies or
channels within the band at the same time. This allows more
information to be transmitted in a set amount of time.
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More Great Articles by Hal Wirtsen
About the Author: Hal Wirtsen is the webmaster of
Hosting-US.com, which is a free informational website about
web hosting. For more information, please visit:
http://www.Hosting-US.com
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