Bandwidth Info

[El Pirata]

Can someone please give me a little information on what bandwidth specifically is. My home page currently has 2.5gb of banwidth but was previously at 1gb. As Error mentioned think of bandwidth as gas for your car, when you're out you're out but this seems a little extreme that is does not recharge. I mean is it a daily usage, weekly, monthly? What? Please give some insite to this mook.

 

[FastEddy]

Usually it is measured by the month. I haven't seen it measured any other way but I may be wrong.

Some providers will cut you off some will give you a warning and most just charge you for any overages you have.

 

[El Pirata]

Can you give me a little more info on how it's usage is determined?

 

[FastEddy]

If you have a 10 mb video file, every time someone looks at it you "Get Charged" 10mb. If 10 people look at it thats 100mb.

If you upload 10 1mb pictures thats 10mb every time someone looks at one of them thats another 1 mb

 

[El Pirata]

Ok, I guess I kind of understand. Well, mostly understand.

 

[RobH]

Eddy has given you the jist of it, but there is something you must know.

When someone says you have 2.5 gb of bandwidth per month, that gigaBITS NOT gigabytes.

What's the difference? a factor of 8.

for example:

2.5 gigabits of bandwidth is about 0.3125 (2.5 divided by 8) gigabytes per month OR 312.5 megabytes per month. so if 10 people download that that 10 megabyte file (100 mb total), you've just blown about a third of your monthly allowance.

If you were to host a 10mb video on your site and post the link on RCNT, your ISP would be squealing like a pig and give you a fat bill in a hurry.

I know I've clouded the issue, but this is how it works.

-Rob

 

[mcvickj]

Just get a fat pipe, setup a webserver and your own domain. Then you could have unlimited bandwidth. Well less restrictions than a company would be able to provide.

 

[Error401]

My webstats always list the bandwidth in Kb. My old host had 30 Gb bandwidth and listed the August stats as 20,000,000 Kb useage, with no overage penalties. So, I can only assume that the bandwidth is measured as Gb. There is a conversion factor in there (1024 Kb per Mb) so it's not just moving the decimal place.

One other thing about useage, when you upload your files, that's included in the useage, not just downstream.

 

[RobH]

Originally posted by error401
There is a conversion factor in there (1024 Kb per Mb) so it's not just moving the decimal place.

yep, you got me there. i honestly can't remember when you use 1024 and when you use 1000. It's like 1000 bytes in a kilobyte by 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte and how many megabytes in a gigabyte? or is it always 1024???

poor El. Yes man, it's like gas in your car.

here is a cool tool:

http://www.matisse.net/mcgi-bin/bits.cgi?input_amount=2.5&input_units=gigabits

i took the oportunity to put in 2.5 gigabits for El. they say it's 320 MB so your 10 mb video could be downloaded 32 times (what about 12 hours on RCNT?) before you'd get nailed.

 

[Error401]

I think it's always 1024 when dealing with computers.

Here's a scarry thought. When you buy a hard drive (say 100 Gb), the sticker says 100 Gb, but what it really means is 100,000,000,000 bytes (give or take a few depending on the heads, cilinders and sectors of the disk itself), but when you do the conversion and format the drive, you'll end up (in disk properties in windows) a couple Gigs less than 100. Alot of folks get really pissed and think there's something wrong (or they got screwed), but that's what happens when ya factor in 1024 bytes per Kb, 1024 Kb per Mb, 1024 Mb per Gb. Kind of deceptive, but that's how it works.

 

[RobH]

yeah, i saw one disk drive that spelled it out on the lable X number of bytes or X.YZ giga bytes.

that's what happens when you get people like the IEEE making up standards. the brain jockies just end up confusing everyone else.

 

[robriguez]

another way the term bandwidth is used:

In regards to website usage its basically a count of the total amount of traffic to and from your site. So as all the others have said, each time someone downloads something off your site (picture, file, movie, etc) it counts towards the total amount of data that has been transmitted.

In regards to connection speed its the amount of traffic that can be passed to your computer in a given time. For example a dial-up modem can be looked at as a single lane highway. If traffic is bumper to bumper your not going anywhere that fast. Only a small number of vehicles can pass under the bridge in...lets say one hour. So if you upgrade to say a DSL line, now you have a 10 lane highway. You can pass many many more cars past the bridge on a 10 lane highway in that same hour.

So....bandwidth in regards to websites = total cumulative amount of data passed. Bandwidth in regards to connection speed = the amount of data that can be passed in a given time.

I hope I didnt just make things worse.

 

[FastEddy]

Originally posted by error401

Here's a scarry thought. When you buy a hard drive (say 100 Gb), the sticker says 100 Gb, but what it really means is 100,000,000,000 bytes (give or take a few depending on the heads, cilinders and sectors of the disk itself), but when you do the conversion and format the drive, you'll end up (in disk properties in windows) a couple Gigs less than 100.

I was always under the impression that there was an advertised capacity of X gigs of space on a drive that thats in fact the total unformatted size however once formatted and the fat tables were written the "Available" space was less than the advertised amount.

I have read several articles on this and always thought this to be the case.

For example If you have an 80min CD-R full to capacity and try to copy it to another disk of the same exact size it wont fit. The reason is you are copying the existing data 700mb including its fat tables as well as the new fat tables that need to be written to the new disk you are recording to. total data 720MB

A 1.4 mb floppy disk once formatted is 1.2mb

A 650 mb CDR-W unformatted reads 650mb of available space and once formatted reads 631 mb available.

An RCNT forum member has an IQ of X and once he logs on its considerably less. :mex: No one comes to mind but it passed my brain and went out my fingers through the KB and wasted valuable bandwidth on the server that has a HD with the capacity of X who the hell knows but they charge for it and the additional space for the fat tables and gigabytes that aren't there after formatting.

Jezzz... Just think we actually concern ourself with this stuff.

 

[Error401]

Hey, just be glad that the IEEE didn't term it "beltsize" or something stupid like that. Look at firewire. What a cool name, it just rolls off the tongue and creates visions of high speed data transfers. Firewire. I think Apple coined the term. Anyway, now everyone has a dang name for it. Sony calls it iLink, others call it Firewire, and alot of geeks call it IEEE 1394 or just 1394. I like Firewire. It just sounds better than USB.

I think RobR outlined the term "bandwidth" best. But the term can be a bit misleading to someone who doesn't geek like some of us.

Oh YEAH, this is #999.

 

[Çh®i§tiªñ]

IEEE

or as us Geeks call it;

I Triple E

 

[Error401]

Any geeks from alabama? Do they say "Aieeeeeee 1394" in cajun land?

 

[Çh®i§tiªñ]

That reminded me of a Yaaaaaaaaaaahoooooooooooo commercial....

 

[El Pirata]

Originally posted by RobH
I know I've clouded the issue, but this is how it works.

-Rob

No, actually you've given clarity to the issue.