bandwidth

Definition

Rate at which electronic signals can travel through a medium, such as a wire, cable, or channel. Bandwidth may be thought of as the width of the 'pipe' through which data travels: greater the width, larger the amount of data that can flow through it. Technically, it means the difference between two frequencies. In analog transmission (such as of voice signals over copper telephone lines) bandwidth is measured in cycles per second (or Hertz); for example, a telephone conversation requires about 4,000 Hertz (4KHz) of bandwidth. In digital transmission (such as of data from one computer to another) bandwidth is measured in bits per second (BPS); for example, modern modems can send and receive data at 56,000 bps (56 Kbps) over ordinary telephone lines. For the same amount of data, digital transmission requires more bandwidth than the analog transmission, and different types of data require very different bandwidths. For example, full motion video normally requires about 10 million bits per second (10 Mbps) bandwidth which is sufficient to carry 1,200 simultaneous telephone conversations.