Other forms: bandwidths
Bandwidth is how much data your connection can carry at once — the width of the pipe, not the speed of the water in it. Four people streaming films in one flat and the picture goes blocky: that is bandwidth running out.
It is measured in megabits per second, and it is not the same thing as latency, which is the wait before anything arrives — a satellite link has wide bandwidth and still feels slow. The older technical sense belongs to radio and physics: bandwidth is the range of frequencies a signal takes up, the slice of the dial a station gets. Offices then borrowed it for people, and I have no bandwidth this week means no time and no attention left — easy work talk, out of place in a formal letter. You will meet high bandwidth, limited bandwidth, and bandwidth-hungry for anything that eats it, video most of all. The noun is uncountable: bandwidth is expensive, never a bandwidth.
1nounbandwidthThe amount of data a connection can carry in a given time.
“The office upgraded its line because the old one had no bandwidth for video calls.”
2nounrangeThe range of frequencies that a signal occupies.
“The channel is narrow, so the bandwidth available to each station is small.”
3nounmentalThe time and mental energy a person has available.
“I would love to help, but I have no bandwidth until Friday.”
bandwidth is a measure of capacity.
Bandwidth is a plain compound of band and width: a band of frequencies, and how wide that band is. Everything the word does now — networks, radio, and the tired office complaint about having none — is that same picture of a strip with a measurable width.
From band + width.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Technology & Internet, Office & Admin, Computing & Code