This site does not include all companies or products available within the market. The compensation we receive for those placements affects how and where advertisers’ offers appear on the site. First, we provide paid placements to advertisers to present their offers. This compensation comes from two main sources. To help support our reporting work, and to continue our ability to provide this content for free to our readers, we receive compensation from the companies that advertise on the Forbes Home site. However, using only one lane doesn’t increase the maximum speed - it just means that car (data packet) doesn’t have as much competition in the journey from point A to point B.The Forbes Home editorial team is independent and objective.

Just like a highway, there’s a point at which the amount of cars will cause a traffic jam or slowdown due to congestion. Bandwidth vs Speed: The Highway MetaphorĪnother common way of describing the difference between bandwidth and speed is the “highway metaphor.” Essentially, you can imagine bandwidth as the number of lanes on the highway, and speed as the speed limit on each lane in the highway.

Speed is more accurately called “throughput,” meaning the rate at which data is “put through” to your laptop/phone/etc. Speed, meanwhile, is the amount of Megabits per second that can be downloaded by a given device using your home network. Bandwidth is the width of that pipe - essentially, the maximum volume of water (data) that can pass through at once. Think of it this way: data is traveling over the Internet cable like water in a pipe.

Speed: the rate at which data can be downloaded (or uploaded) to a given device using that Internet connection, also measured in Megabits per second.īandwidth vs Speed: The Plumbing Metaphor.

Bandwidth: the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted over an Internet connection, as measured in Megabits per second (Mbps).

In fact, there is a subtle difference between them.

Internet providers frequently use the terms “bandwidth” and “speed” interchangeably. Bandwidth Calculator Tool Bandwidth vs speed: what’s the difference?

Ideal speed for streaming