Comments on: Service Providors and Big Brother Wag Each Others Tails Again http://www.cmdln.org/2009/09/07/service-providors-and-big-brother-wag-each-others-tails-again/ a system administrators mutterings Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:12:14 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Dusty Wilson http://www.cmdln.org/2009/09/07/service-providors-and-big-brother-wag-each-others-tails-again/comment-page-1/#comment-993 Dusty Wilson Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:40:11 +0000 http://www.cmdln.org/?p=487#comment-993 The problem I see most is that people get confused about "bandwidth" meaning the total amount of data transferred over a period of time. "Bandwidth" is how wide your band is, not how much you used. This is especially annoying with webhosting. 10Mbps is bandwidth. 1000GB/mth is monthly transfer. You'll find on hosting plans that they call that bandwidth. I haven't really seen that as a big terminology problem (yet) on Internet connection plans, but it is something that people still get confused with. We're actually billed on bandwidth, based on a maximum pipe size, not the total amount of data transferred. Thankfully they don't bill (yet) on data transferred or on percentiles. In my office, we have 6Mbps down and 3Mbps up. I do miss the nice download speed I had with Comcast in Washington, but my upload is much nicer than Comcast offered at the time. I wish it were symmetrical 6/6. Actually, I wish it were more like 20/10 or higher. But what should I expect in rural Kansas? The problem I see most is that people get confused about “bandwidth” meaning the total amount of data transferred over a period of time. “Bandwidth” is how wide your band is, not how much you used. This is especially annoying with webhosting. 10Mbps is bandwidth. 1000GB/mth is monthly transfer. You’ll find on hosting plans that they call that bandwidth. I haven’t really seen that as a big terminology problem (yet) on Internet connection plans, but it is something that people still get confused with.

We’re actually billed on bandwidth, based on a maximum pipe size, not the total amount of data transferred. Thankfully they don’t bill (yet) on data transferred or on percentiles.

In my office, we have 6Mbps down and 3Mbps up. I do miss the nice download speed I had with Comcast in Washington, but my upload is much nicer than Comcast offered at the time. I wish it were symmetrical 6/6. Actually, I wish it were more like 20/10 or higher. But what should I expect in rural Kansas?

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