>Hi there
> was wondering if anyone could tell me what it means when a
>web host says that you get something like 10GB bandwidth for
>web visitors/hits?
That's a very strange way to put things... I think that
person who stated that actually need to explain what
(s)he meant with that.
>How do they calculate the bandwidth?
Bandwidth is a measurement of how much information (theoretical)
that could be put through a communication channel. It has the
dimension <information bits>/<time units>.
A communication channel can be something physical, like a
copper or fiber cable or a little more abstract physical
things like a transmission wave (electromagnetic waves,
a.k.a. radio waves).
But the bandwidth could also be referring to an abstract
communication channel in a physical communication channel.
This is done by dividing the physical channel into several
subchannels, these subchannels will then have there own
bandwidth. But the sum of the subchannels bandwidth can
never exceed the total bandwidth of the physical channel.
Hence bandwidth is the measurement of how much information
you maximal can send through a communication channel of
any sort. Just because the bandwidth could be measured
to be X with a certain communication channel does NOT
mean that you will have a TRANSMISSION rate of X.
Normally you will suffer with the transmission rate,
because of things like overhead information (like
information that belongs to the transmission protocol
and error correction performed by the transmission
protocol).
If you reach a transmission rate of about 90% of the
bandwidth, then you should be happy. BUT this is not
entirely true: some transmission protocol can compress
data, and then you will have a VIRTUAL transmission rate
that actually can exceed the bandwidth of the channel!!
But the PHYSICAL transmission rate of the compressed
data can NEVER exceed the bandwidth of the channel.
Well, anyhow we have to relate this to your question too.
You question was: 'How can they calculate this?'
As you understand from my explanation, they CAN NOT
calculate a bandwidth like that, since it violates the
definition of what a bandwidth actually are. But they
can, on the other hand, calculate a sort of "transmission
rate" on the channel.
And this might simply be calculated as:
<number hits> * <number of bits to perform a hit> / <time>
Regards,
Anders - which are sorry for this off topic message
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