What is Internet Speed? | What is Bandwidth?

You should know where and how to check your Internet speed can give you a good idea whether or not your Internet connection is as fast as claimed by the provider. However, you must be careful what is being measured, and whether or not a slow speed is connected to the Internet service as such or to your server speed.

What is Internet Speed?

We will focus here on your Internet or broadband speed. Internet or Broadband Speed is the speed with which your Internet service provider is able to pass data through the line, whether that is copper or fiber optic. Internet or Broadband speed is measured in bandwidth, which relates to the capacity of your network connections to pass data.

Let's understand this better, think of a pipeline supplying water to your home. In this there are two factors that involve the rate at which a pipeline can supply water: the water pressure and the diameter of the pipe. It is fact that at equal pressures, a wider diameter pipe can pass more water than a lower diameter pipe.

Now assume that this Pressure can be related to number of users – the more people drawing water, the less the water pressure. In the same way, the more people online, the more data is passing through the lines and the slower it will travel.

What is Bandwidth?

In the above example Bandwidth can be related to width of the pipe for explanation purposes, the term has nothing to do with physical dimensions. This is merely a convenient way in which to express a measurement to the general public. There may be An old modem might have passed data at the rate of 28.8 Kbs (kilobits/sec). But now A broadband connection is measured in Mb or megabits of data transferred per second. It’s a lot faster!

Here when we are discussing home computers, laptops or mobile devices, you will have two different connection speeds. It is related to the download speed (the speed by which data can be received) and upload speed (the speed by which data can be sent by your computer.)

There is another factor of which you should be aware, is that you may be sharing bandwidth with many other users and devices in your area, so you will never attain the bandwidth speeds claimed by your provider. There is a line passing through a rural area with few users will pass data faster than a similar line passing through a large city where corporations, large and small businesses and many individuals are all trying to upload and download data at the same time.