Network Infrastructure: The Internet Backbone

Abstract

Bandwidth is an expression of the speed at which digitized data can travel over a conductor such as a telephone wire (relatively slow) or a fibre optic cable (relatively fast). We shall define ‘bandwidth’ simply as the maximum amount of data in megabits per second (mbps) that can be sent from computer A to computer B, thereby expressing the capacity of a networked connection. In essence, the more bandwidth there is, the more data that can travel along that connection within a certain period of time. As Table 4.1 shows, some applications require very little bandwidth, others quite a lot.