Why is bandwidth a factor in data transmission?

Answer 1

Bandwidth is a measure of two different factors, depending on context. First, it can be considered the speed of the connection (usually referred to as "internet speed" or "bandwidth speed"). This is most often expressed in megabits per second (abbreviated as Mbps). The higher this value is, the faster that data can transfer between the Internet and you. Most Internet connections that people have nowadays are asynchronous in nature, meaning that the speed to send data from their computers to the Internet are different (read: slower) than the speed to send data from the Internet to the user. As a good example, in my city the cable company's top speed is 110Mbps for download speed (meaning data coming from the Internet to the end-user) but only 5Mbps for upload speed. If one is interested only in small things such as sending out typical emails, browsing the Internet, or even playing Internet-enhanced games, this is more than sufficient. However, if someone wants to operate a self-managed web server for his friends and family, this could very easily be too limited due to the upload speed since the server would be constantly responding to requests for data from its pages when accessed by those aforementioned friends and family members.

Second, the term bandwidth can refer to the amount of data being transferred (usually mentioned as "data usage" or "bandwidth needed") and can be referred to in any common measure such as bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes. This is just a raw figure for the amount of data that is used to transfer files, whether they be pictures, videos, audio, text, or other parts of a website, Windows patches, or whatever else. Some ISPs have limitations on the amount of data that one can transfer in a month's time. Usually it is the cable companies that impose those limits but some of the phone companies (such as AT&T's U-Verse service) are also starting to impose such limitations with the penalty for exceeding the arbitrary monthly allotment being either slowed speed until the next month begins or allowing one to continue at full speed but being charges excess data usage fees.

As for the term lag, that refers to a delay between transmission and reception of the data. There is always a limited amount of lag on the Internet since we are talking about a network but for most purposes, the lag is not a concern. For online gaming, it can be more of an issue and certain servers will kick users off if their ping rates (the method used to measure lag) exceeds a certain level for a pre-defined amount of time.

Lag can be--and often is--affected by the Internet speed (whether up or down) in use by the person in question. It can also be affected by the type of Internet connection (such as buried coax cable from the cable TV service, pole-based cable from the telephone company, or satellite communication from a service such as DirecPC or whatever they want to call it this year), weather conditions, and more. There could also be some other issue at play that is beyond the control of the end-user and the ISP such as a router that is serving as one of the intermediary hops between the user and the game (or other web) server that is compromised and therefore causing communication problems.

So, bandwidth is a concern for gamers but so are many other factors. If one is noticing lag, the best thing to do is try to attach to a different server (assuming that is an option) and see if that makes any difference. If not, then come back and try again a few minutes to a few hours later and chances are that things will be back to normal.

I hope this helps. If you have other questions that I can answer for you, feel free to drop me a line.

Answer 2

The bigger the bandwidth, the faster the speed.Also, Gamers need Bigger Bandwidths so they don't

get as much 'lag' in games.

'lag' is when you stop and starting in a game.

You will walk, jump or shoot and you will see

that it won't do it straight away.

Thats LAG for you.

Answer 3

Bandwidth also called band; range of frequencies that a transmission medium can carry in a given period of time and thus a measure of the amount of information that can be delivered.
The bandwidth is the difference between the lowest and the highest frequencies transmitted.
for analog signals, bandwidth is expressed in hertz(Hz), or cycles per second.
For digital signals, bandwidth is expressed in bits per second (bps).
The wider the bandwidth, the faster the data can be transmitted.
The narrower the bandwidth, the greater the loss of transmission power.