|  | 1.5 | Digital Bandwidth
| 1.5.4 | Data throughput in relation to digital bandwidth

Imagine that you are lucky enough to have a brand new cable modem, or your local store just installed an ISDN line, or your school just received a 10 Megabit Ethernet LAN. Imagine that movie you want to view, or the web page you want to load, or the software you want to download takes forever to receive. Did you believe you were getting all that bandwidth that was advertised? There is another important concept that you should have considered; it is called throughput.

Throughput

refers to actual, measured, bandwidth, at a specific time of day, using specific internet routes, while downloading a specific file. Unfortunately, for many reasons, the throughput is often far less then the maximum possible digital bandwidth of the medium that is being used. Some of the factors that determine throughput and bandwidth include the following:

- internetworking devices
- type of data being transferred
- topology
- number of users
- user's computer
- server computer
- power and weather-induced outages

When you design a network, it is important that you consider the theoretical bandwidth. Your network will be no faster than your media will allow. When you actually work on networks, you will want to measure throughput and decide if the throughput is adequate for the user.