Bandwidth

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Bandwidth usually refers to a data rate measured in bits/s, like for example, network throughput. The reason for the connection of data rate with bandwidth is because, according to Hartley's law, the limit to the data rate (that is, the channel capacity) of a physical communication link is related to its bandwidth in hertz, sometimes called analog bandwidth in computer networking literature. For the case of high signal/noise ratio, the digital bandwidth consumption (i.e. the throughput) of a bit stream or logical link in a computer network is proportional to the average spectral bandwidth of the analog signal representing the bit stream during a studied time interval. However, measuring bandwidth in bits/s is often disputed due to confusion with the original definition. Less ambiguous terms are, for example, gross bit rate, net bit rate, throughput, goodput or channel capacity.

In website hosting, the term "bandwidth" is often used metaphorically to describe the amount of data that can be transferred to or from the website or server, measured in bytes transferred over a set period of time. This can be more accurately described as "Monthly Data Transfer."

Web hosting companies often quote a monthly bandwidth limit for a website, for example 500 gigabytes per month. If visitors to the website download a total greater than 500 gigabytes in one month, the bandwidth limit will have been exceeded.