Bandwidth involves a combination of time and speed. Time is measured in seconds and speed in bits, bytes, megabytes and so on. Bandwidth is the rate at which data (in bits and bytes) is allowed to flow between your visitors’ devices and your website.
It differs from data transfer. Data transfer is the amount of data that you can transfer whereas bandwidth is the volume of data you can transfer within a particular time frame. For instance, a bandwidth of 100 Mbps means that 100 megabits can be transferred by the computer in one second. With larger bandwidth, a website loads faster.
What is Bandwidth in Web Hosting?
When a viewer accesses your website, he/she is requesting access to its data. Then your server, which holds the data, transfers it to the person’s browser. In hosting, bandwidth refers to the data transferred by your server whenever one accesses it. Therefore, if your website has a 100 Mbps bandwidth, your server will be transferring 100 megabits every second.
If you want to build a high-performance site that can be easily accessed by a large number of visitors, you’ll need higher bandwidth besides other factors like a good VPS server.
How to Estimate the Needed Monthly Bandwidth for Your WordPress Site?
The bandwidth required by your WordPress site primarily depends on the size of your web pages and the number of visitors to your website. Sites with millions of monthly views require plans with large bandwidth.
You can estimate the needed monthly bandwidth as follows:
- Estimate the average size of your web pages in kilobytes.
- Multiply your average page volume by the average of the monthly views to your site.
- Multiply the result by the average of your website’s views per visitor.
What is Unmetered Bandwidth?
Unmetered bandwidth comes with a specific limit of the bandwidth. Nevertheless, you can transfer as much data as you wish within the given limit. This kind of bandwidth is offered by the best WordPress hosting provider.
Unmetered bandwidth is not the same as unlimited bandwidth. The latter is a hosting plan without any limits on a site’s bandwidth rates.
However, in reality, it’s impossible to have completely unlimited bandwidth. There’s always a cap on speed capabilities. Therefore, web hosts place bandwidth limits even in the case of unlimited plans.
At times of an unpredicted high spike in traffic on your site, an unlimited plan may still struggle to support all the visitors.
Thankfully, unmetered bandwidth offers what unlimited bandwidth cannot. Although the speed of your virtual server is limited, the volume of data that your device can process is unlimited.
What Are the Benefits of Opting for Unmetered Bandwidth?
- You need not worry about the amount of data your server transfers. Overall usage of the bandwidth is not monitored.
- Since there is no upper limit of data that can be transferred within the bandwidth, no worries about exhausting your data.
- A flat price is applicable just for the speed, which is usually higher than in the case of metered bandwidth.
Unmetered bandwidth is the most suitable for a high-traffic, media-heavy or data-heavy website. If you need it, consider choosing the best WordPress hosting company that offers unmetered bandwidth under all plans.
