Different hosting companies offer different bandwidth options in their various packages. So let us try to understand what is bandwidth when it comes to web hosting? In simple words we can say that the bandwidth refers to the amount of traffic occurs between a website and rest all other websites in the internet world. So, the bandwidth offered by a hosting firm is based on the firm’s network connections, which can be both external to the internal to the company’s data center.

The Network Connection

Internet is nothing millions and millions of computers connected to each by networks. Now the size of connections can vary from internet location to another. The connections can be large or small and that mostly is determined by the amount of equipment and cabling deployed at a particular internet location. This size of connection is what determines the amount of bandwidth available. For instance, if a company uses a DSL service for internet access, it will get 1.54 Mega bits of bandwidth.

So now we know that bandwidth is measured in terms of bits, which are then grouped to form bytes that make words, texts and all other kinds of information, which can be transferred between a particular computer system and internet.
The Concept of Unlimited Bandwidth

By now we know that bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transferred through a particular cable that is connected to internet service provider. So now let’s get to the million dollar question – is the concept of “unlimited bandwidth” real?

Well, it is real when you look at the marketing strategies of various web hosting service providers across the world, but in reality there is nothing called unlimited bandwidth. It is always limited, either by data cable, internet or network card.

One of the latest developments in the hosting world has been the usage of virtualized servers, which is mostly used in VPS hosting services. These services further divide the bandwidth; these kinds of divisions do not really hurt the traffic flow of most of the websites as they don’t really need that much of bandwidth. The reason is HTML files are non-taxing as they don’t really take much space, for that matter even the images don’t bother the newer data connections. Then there are various database operations to be carried out, but again they are handled on the server end.

The hosting firms know the fact that most of the sites hardly need that much of bandwidth and at a particular time there will be very few websites that will require more bandwidth. Keeping this fact in mind, they promote their packages with the tag of unlimited bandwidth.

The bottom line is that when it comes to choosing a good web host there are a whole of other things to consider than to just ask what is bandwidth offering of the company or does it offer unlimited bandwidth. One needs to look at the average uptime, downtime of the company, its reputation in the market, its security policies and most importantly the quality of its tech support team and if they are offering round-the-clock assistance or not.

Now, it’s also important to understand that you must not make false promises of unlimited bandwidth and hosting space to your customers, and give full clarity about it in your TOS. Having said so, it’s also noteworthy that catchy features like unlimited bandwidth, add-on domains, and storage space are some of the most important aspects that can fetch you the most business. Therefore, you don’t need to actually sit back, and refrain from beautifying your hosting packages, but it’s just that you must not give any false assurances that may annoy your customers at later stages.