An Explanation Of Bandwidth: What It Means And How Much You Need it

One of the more difficult technology issues
to wrap your head around when planning a
website and choosing a web hosting service
is bandwidth: What is it? How much do you
need? Even if you have owned several
websites in the past, when it comes to
understanding bandwidth offers from
hosting companies, it is easy to become
overwhelmed. Certain truths are inevitable
when it comes to bandwidth:
1. You need to find the right bandwidth
option for your needs.
2. Failure to do so will result in an
underperforming website, additional
charges, or both.
What is Bandwidth?
In its most basic definition, bandwidth
describes the level of traffic and data
allowed to travel and transfer between your
site, users, and the Internet. Each web
hosting company will offer a particular level
of bandwidth. This is often a good
indication of which hosting companies have
the best of three essential components:
Networks, connections and systems.
Usually, the more bandwidth a web host
can provide, the faster and the better these
three factors will be. At the same time, you
should try to avoid attractive-looking
“unlimited bandwidth” offers, as these are
often not what they seem (more on this
point later). “Unmetered bandwidth” should
be more along the lines of what you are
looking for.
Your Network Connectivity
You probably already know that the Internet
consists of millions of computers around
the world that are connected by networks.
The bigger the connection, the faster the
network, and the more bandwidth that is
available for a site. If you are familiar with
your home Internet connection, you have
probably encountered bandwidth in terms of
your connection speed. After all, speed is a
lot easier for the layperson to understand
than a technical-sounding term such as
bandwidth.
Bandwidth at Home
Ten years ago, you might have used a
frustratingly slow DSL connection with a
speed of 1.5 megabits (MB) per second.
Replace the word “speed” with “bandwidth”
and it will become clear. Your bandwidth
allowed a maximum of 1.5MB per second
to transfer from a network to your
computer.
The Advent of Broadband
The problem of dreadfully slow DSL
connections gave rise to what is known as
broadband, i.e., the capacity to transfer
large amounts of data quickly over a
copper cable connection. Fiber optic cable
is now replacing copper cable, setting a new
gold standard in broadband speeds, and
moving us from the world of megabit
speeds into the world of gigabit speeds
(1000 megabits equal 1 gigabit).
Within Web Hosting
What is Web Hosting and How Does It
Work?
Source: Austinseoguy.com
Getting back to web hosting, you can liken
a DSL connection to a shared server. On its
own, the connection or server is very
powerful; when being shared by dozens or
hundreds of people, it slows to a crawl. You
can still experience this today in an Internet
café or a library; the connection will be
noticeably quicker early in the morning
when you are the sole user than it will be
later in the day when large numbers of
users get online and slow the connection
down (times of peak usage).
Bandwidth and the Relationship
With Web Traffic
Let’s use another analogy to help make
bandwidth clearer. In this example, the
bandwidth is the number of tables in a
restaurant, and the web traffic is the diners.
The math is simple: The more tables in the
restaurant, the more patrons can dine there
at any one time.
Assuring Site Performance
Under High Traffic Conditions
Translate this back to the Internet: The
higher your bandwidth, the more people can
visit your site at the same time and fully
enjoy the peak experience you created for
them. Remember, however, that it takes a
very special restaurant with skilled
employees to manage operations when the
venue is full to capacity. How your site
operates under the stress of high traffic will
be crucial to your success. What is the use
of high bandwidth if your site cannot cope?
You might be able to facilitate 400 visitors
a day. What would happen if they all turned
up at once?
Understanding traffic patterns is an
important consideration when choosing a
bandwidth option. Taking the time now to
conduct detailed research into your likely
visitor demographics will result in a fact-
based approach to determining your
bandwidth needs. The most likely outcome?
You will decide to pay for more bandwidth
to assure consistency in your website
performance throughout the day for all
visitors.
Considering Bandwidth and Web
Design
Do not fall prey to the common
misconception that downloading data is
only associated with popular entertainment
sites such as YouTube or iTunes. Almost
every action a person takes online involves
downloading some amount of data. The
bigger and more complicated your web
design, the more bandwidth will be used up
whenever someone visits your site, even if
they don’t get past your homepage.
Thankfully, modern web design trends are
moving toward simplistic, minimalist
designs. This means your own site can
present a professionally designed,
contemporary look without appearing to be
a budget compromise.
We would be happy to speak with you about
the impact of your website design on
bandwidth needs. Call us for a free
consultation.
The Big Question: How Much
Bandwidth Do You Need?
“How much bandwidth do I need?”
“How much bandwidth do I need?”
Fortunately, it’s not THAT complicated to
figure out. Source: Blog.dscicorp.com
The answer to this question depends on a
variety of factors. Fortunately, we have a
formula you can apply that will sort out
these factors and help you nail down how
much bandwidth you really need to support
the traffic on your site. Armed with this
information you can evaluate offers from
different hosting companies, dismissing
those that try to sell you more bandwidth
than you need.
The Bandwidth Formula
As long as you do not offer file downloads
from your website, the following formula
will tell you how much bandwidth you need:
Daily visitors x Daily page views x Average
page size x 31 x Tolerance number
The formula gets a little more complicated
if your website does contain downloadable
content, but is still a reasonably
straightforward equation. If your school
math is rusty, remember that you have to
solve the formulas in the brackets first!
(Daily visitors x Daily page views x Average
page size) + (Daily file downloads x Average
file size) x 31 x Tolerance number
Finding Your Bandwidth Number
We have created the following table that
you can reproduce to help you come up with
the correct variables in the formula. We
have also included example numbers that
we will use to revisit the equation at the
end.
Element What it Means
Number
(Our
Example,
Populate
this with
Your own
Numbers)
Daily
visitors
(average)
The number of
daily visitors you
expect your site to
have. Calculate an
average across the
month. Do not
over-complicate it
and work it out
day-by-day.
200
Daily page
views
(average)
Again, calculate
an average
projection across
the month.
650
Average
page size
What is the
average size of
your pages, all
things included, in
KB.
60
Daily file
downloads
(average)
How many times
will content be
downloaded from
your site on a
daily basis in
terms of additional
files independent
of your web
pages?
10
Average
downloaded
file size
How big is the
average file you
can download from
your site? Err on
the side of caution
and always go
bigger if in doubt.
Measure this in
KB, too.
850
Tolerance
number
This is basically
your ‘room for
error.’ If ‘1’ is your
estimate, make this
number 1.33, or
1.5, depending on
how confident you
are in your
projections. If you
believe your site
may grow quickly,
aim for a higher
number.
2
In case you are wondering, the “31” in the
formula refers to the maximum number of
days in a month. Most hosting companies
calculate bandwidth allowance on a
monthly basis, so we take the numbers and
multiply them by 31.
DO NOT MISCALCULATE: Double check
every number you input. If your calculation
is too low you may find yourself with only a
fraction of the bandwidth you require. If it’s
too high you may end up paying
unnecessarily for bandwidth you don’t need.
Remember, too, that most hosting
companies will offer bandwidth based on
GB per month, so be sure  to convert the
number from KB to GB.
The Solution
This is what our hypothetic website would
need:
(Daily visitors [200] x Daily page views
[650] x Average page size [60]) + (Daily file
downloads [10] x Average downloaded file
[850]) x 31 x 2
Simplified, this gives us:
7,800,000 + 8500 x 31 x 2
The answer is a rather huge-looking
484,127,800KB, which converts to about
462GB, the correct bandwidth requirement
for this website.
If you need assistance completing this
formula, please call us for a free
consultation.
Choosing Your Solution
Bear in mind that a number such as the
one above represents the bandwidth
requirements for a reasonably sized website
turning over a good sum of money
[generating a good amount of revenue?]. A
small business might only require up to
5GB, if that, when the website is first
launched. It is also unlikely that when you
first get started you will have a lot of
content to download. However, this is still a
great equation to keep in mind when
projecting costs as your business — and
traffic levels — grow.
Unlimited Bandwidth versus
Unmetered Bandwidth
Now, let’s clear up that point we mentioned
earlier: Offers of unlimited bandwidth. Many
web-hosting companies will offer unlimited
bandwidth as part of their hosting package,
a very attractive offer at face value.
However, these offers should be checked
out very carefully. Unlimited bandwidth
could quite easily translate into, “use what
you want, but only the first 10GB is free.”
Most hosting companies that offer
unlimited bandwidth do so knowing that a
small business might only use 1GB a
month, only to hit clients with additional
hidden costs later when bandwidth use
increases.
Unmetered bandwidth, on the other hand, is
a much more transparent offer. The web
hosting company is telling you they do not
measure your bandwidth usage; you simply
pay the agreed rate and use what you need.
Finding a Web Host
Armed with the information presented in
this article, you no longer have to be a
hostage to bandwidth proclamations and
misleading deals from hosting companies.
Once you know what your needs are and
how to see through industry jargon, you can
confidently secure a hosting package with
appropriate levels of bandwidth to support
your business needs.