▷ Bandwidth: definition, what it is and how it is calculated

If you still do not know exactly what this means of bandwidth, in this article we will try to give a simple explanation of we will also see how to calculate it, how to measure it and what are its units. Without further delay, let's start, take the opportunity to take your ADSL or Fiber contract to identify your bandwidth.

What is the bandwidth of a wave

Before looking at what bandwidth is for a computer user, it would not hurt to know where this term comes from and in which field it was first used.

The first field of application of the wave and analog signals, as one of its properties. The bandwidth of a wave is the length of the wave extension where the greatest signal power is concentrated.

We will all know what a wave looks like, because at the crests of its sinusoid, it is where a wave reaches its greatest power. If we take a line that cuts the crest of the wave at a certain height (dB), the bandwidth will be the frequencies between the two cut points. The bandwidth of a wave is measured in Hertz or Hz.

What is computer bandwidth

We already know more or less what is the bandwidth of a wave, but really we are not interested in this definition, but the bandwidth in computer terms. And that is what we will define now.

Well, bandwidth in computer terms is basically the amount of data that we can send and receive in the field of communication per unit of time. We can consume a series of resources or data expressed in bits and their different multiples, so we can understand bandwidth as a range to transfer data or the rate of data transfer.

Then the bandwidth can be measured bits per second, or bps or also b / s. Of course this measurement is really small, and we normally use, from the point of view of the networks, the Kilobits Kb / s or Megabits Mb / s, and more often the Gigabits Gb / s.

Bandwidth can also be expressed as digital bandwidth, network bandwidth or available bandwidth, they all mean the same thing, and bits are always transmitted. If I can send 100 Megabits of data in a second in a connection between two computers, for example, it will mean that I have a bandwidth of 100 Mb / s or Mbps

What is Wi-Fi bandwidth

When we refer to the bandwidth that we have consumed in our network, it means the average amount of data that has been successfully transmitted in a communication. This is also called Throughput or Goodput.

Before we talked about the bandwidth of a wave and it was measured in Hz. This now becomes important from the point of view of a Wi-Fi network, because it works by means of waves through the air.

At this point we can differentiate the two frequencies at which a Wi-Fi network normally works, namely , 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, the more GHz the transmission wave peaks are closer together or the faster a period is completed in her. We should also know that the 5 GHz frequency has a greater bandwidth, since having the waves "closer" will have a greater capacity to transport information in them.

Wi-Fi channel bandwidth

Wi-Fi bandwidth is quite variable, and may not be optimal due to interference or channel saturation. The Wi-Fi signal is divided into channels, and each device uses a certain channel to transmit the information to the other device.

These channels are not infinite, so if we live in a block where there are many Wi-Fi routers, it is very possible that we experience quite slow in our connection. This is because our router is surely operating on the same channel as many others close to it, so it is very difficult for you to identify your signal and eliminate the interference that has been mixed with it.

But this has a solution, since we can enter our router and if it is something advanced, we will be able to determine ourselves under which channel we want our signal frequency, in order to have a better bandwidth without interference from other equipment. In this sense, each router has its own firmware, and the option will be in a different place, so it is best to take a look at the user manual or ask our operator.

Calculate bandwidth: difference between MB / s and Mb / s

At this point, it is necessary that we know the difference between different measurement units to know our bandwidth. The first difference that we must make is how much multiples bits, megabits, gigabits, etc. are equivalent to.

Measure	Symbol	Equivalence in bits per second
bit	b / s	one
Kilobit	Kb / s	1, 000
Megabit	Mb / s	1, 000, 000
Gigabit	Gb / s	1, 000, 000, 000

But surely we have seen on many occasions these measures in terms of Bytes per second (B / s), Kilobytes per second (KB / s), or Megabytes per second (MB / s). And obviously, it is not the same, since a Byte is formed by a chain of 8 Bits. This measure is usually used for the storage of hard drives, but also for networks or other computer media related to data.

In terms of quantities 1 Kilobyte is also equivalent to 1, 000 Bytes, and so on, so in this sense the equivalence is direct. The data on our disk is saved in Bytes, and the weight of the files we want to download and even the download speed are always measured in Bytes.

So:

1 Byte = 8 bits

In this way, if we had a contracted bandwidth of 200 Mb / s, we could download a file at a speed of 200/8 = 25 MB / s. We see that the measurement is quite different, and that is why this is the value that really matters. We only have to know how to measure our bandwidth.

Bandwidth test

We say that this measurement is the important one, because when we download something from the Internet, this will be the measurement that we will see (MB / s). Performing the conversion we will know how many Megabits is the bandwidth of our connection, and we will also know if the 200 Mb / s that we have contracted, are reaching us intact.

There are a multitude of web pages that allow us to measure our bandwidth or speed, the fastest to identify is Google's, we only have to type in the desired " speed test " and we will have it directly.

The interesting thing about this test is that the measurements are given in Mb / s, so we will not need to do the conversion to know what we have contracted.

This test can also be done with our Wi-Fi connection and even with the data rate of our mobile. In this way we can always know what our bandwidth is.

For our part, we have already finished this article on bandwidth, as you can see, it is an interesting topic, and we need to know if we use an Internet connection.

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