Slide 2 of 8
Think of bandwidth as similar to the width or capacity of a pipe. For example, a high capacity water pipe might allow a maximum of twenty gallons of water per second to stream through it. However, on the web we’re pumping packets of data measured in bits, kilobits and megabits per second. Technical people use a term called data rate to refer to the rate per second at which data is electronically transmitted across a network line. On the internet most people measure data rate based on kilobits per second. For example, a 28.8 modem has a bandwidth capacity of about 28 kilobites per second.
