What Is Bandwidth vs Internet Speed? Explained Simply
Bandwidth is how much data your connection can carry, while speed is how fast that data actually moves.
Bandwidth is the maximum capacity of data your connection can carry at once, while internet speed is how fast individual data packets travel.
Have you purchased an “ultra-fast” internet package, but still experienced frozen video content and slow page loading speeds because of several simultaneous users? If you have experienced such things, you have definitely encountered the difference between internet bandwidth and internet speed without noticing it. The vast majority of individuals tend to interchangeably use the words “bandwidth” and “internet speed,” meaning that they are the same thing. This assumption is completely wrong, since bandwidth and speed have distinct meanings. While bandwidth refers to the amount of data that you can simultaneously transmit, speed means the speed of its transmission. Knowledge of this slight but crucial difference will allow you to pick a proper internet plan, to resolve problems with Wi-Fi speed and to stop paying for something unnecessary. In this article, we explain both terms in detail, demonstrate their correlation and provide a handy table, which will help you to calculate how much bandwidth you actually require.
What Is Bandwidth?
Bandwidth is the total number of bits that can flow from your computer to the internet and back within a single instant. This measurement can be made in megabits per second (Mbps) but may sometimes appear in kilobits per second (Kbps) or gigabits per second (Gbps) where there is a need to describe very high speed internet. ISPs refer to bandwidth figures when marketing their plans even if they call it “speed.”
In order to explain bandwidth in simple terms, think about the example of water flowing through a pipe. The wider the diameter of the pipe, the more water will flow through the pipe. No matter how much pressure one applies to the narrower pipe, it will not be able to move more than a certain quantity of water at once. In similar fashion, an internet connection that has high bandwidth will be able to transfer more data at once. Another comparison can be made with the example of a highway.