I’d like to have a small rant about the confusion over the terms ‘data transfer’ and ‘bandwidth’ in the world of hosting, domains and ISPs. They seem to get used interchangeably, but they definitely don’t mean the same thing!
Your data transfer limit or quota is the quantity of data you are allowed to transfer to and from your website server (excluding email) or over your internet connection during a fixed period – usually a month.
Your bandwidth limit refers to maximum speed at which data transfer can take place, i.e. the number of bits-per-second that can be transferred to and from your website, or over your connection.
Hosting companies are partly responsible for the confusion because they tend to use ‘bandwidth’ a lot when they mean ‘data transfer’. It troubles me greatly, but I suppose there’s not a lot we can do about it. The next time I see ‘unlimited bandwidth’ offers, I quite fancy having a go and seeing if I can transfer unlimited quantities of data simultaneously. That’s definitely not what they mean.
(Incidentally, ‘unlimited’ anything offers are usually a con. I will probably complain more about this at a later date.)
Posted by: domainstreet
Categories:
Technology
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