Discussion
What does the term ‘bandwidth’ measure in a network?
Answer: D
Correct answer: The maximum rate at which data can be transferred
Bandwidth is the maximum rate at which data can be carried, measured in bits per second - Mbps or Gbps. It is a measure of capacity, not of speed in the everyday sense. It should be distinguished from two related quantities that users often conflate with it. Latency is the delay before data begins to arrive, measured in milliseconds; a satellite link may have high bandwidth and terrible latency, which is why it is poor for video calls but fine for downloads. Throughput is the rate actually achieved, which is always less than the bandwidth because of protocol overhead, congestion and retransmission. The analogy usually offered is a pipe: bandwidth is its width, latency is the time for water to travel its length, and throughput is what actually comes out. Note the unit trap: network speeds are quoted in bits per second and file sizes in bytes, so a 100 Mbps link transfers about 12.5 MB per second.
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