Bandwidth exceeded? Options

[bravodancer04]

What does it mean when your bandwidth is exceeded?

[Jhaks]

Ok so we need a good definition of "bandwidth". Well the actually the term bandwidth is slightly different then how people here are using it. In the traditional sense it means how much data a device can pump through itself in a span of time. So for example most network cards (the thing in your computer that talks to the internet) have a typical bandwidth of 100 Megabytes per second. This means it can pump up to 100 megabytes of data into and out of your computer every second (not 100 in and 100 out of your computer; 100 combined in and out). Your internet service provider most likely however only gives you a bandwidth to the internet of about 1.5 to 3 Megabytes per second.

Now the way some people have started using it, bandwidth means the amount of data (your files) that they allow to be transfered from thier servers in a given time. So they might have a bandwidth of 10 megabytes per week for your files meaning in one week they will only allow a maximum of 10 Mb to be accessed through thier servers. If I have a song thats 5Mb and two people play my song over the internet then it can't be accessed anymore. Sometimes it's measured by the month too.

This was probably kind of unclear but I hope it makes some sense.