4. Bandwidth and uses
The reason that bandwidth is so important is that it determines what you can do in terms of services.
If you only want to send text-only email then a very slow link is fine. For example a slow GSM link on a mobile phone will do the job.
Example
Say you wanted to download a 10MB file over a 56kpbs link. How long would it take?
It would take 1428 seconds or 23 minutes to download (10 million x 8) / 56000
A copper-wire based broadband link is typically around 15 Mbps therefore the same picture file would only take about 10 seconds to download.
Having a high bandwidth link such as a fibre-optic link makes it possible to use multimedia services such as
- Video: viewing streaming video in real time without hesitation
- Audio: such as using VoIP telephone or listening to streamed music.
If the bandwidth is too low for such services, then the only option is to download the complete audio or video file then play it back offline.
challenge see if you can find out one extra fact on this topic that we haven't already told you
Click on this link: bandwidth of multimedia services