Is it called bandwidth or data?

[764]

I need to ask my ISP for a better connection but I don't know what to call it. Should I ask for more bandwidth or more data?

P.S - this is for a home connection not a smartphone (if there's a difference).

[Thomas]

Bandwidth, that's speed. eg 15 megabytes per second

Data is quanity eg. You can download 4 million songs

[dschoolma]

Bandwidth - describes the amount of data that can be transported to/from your computer over the internet. Lower bandwidth means that data transfer will slow down if many people are using the same connection.

Data - describes the packets of information that you are sending and receiving.

If you want faster speeds on uploads and downloads, etc then you should ask for more bandwidth.

Many ISP's are talking about (or do) charge(ing) for the amount of data that you "use" over a set limit (say 2Gb), like they do for cell phones. If you have a data limit on your account and wish to be able to "use" more data before being charged extra, then you should ask for more data on your account.

[Jan]

It doesn't matter what you call it, those people are trained to understand what you're trying to say. If they don't know exactly what you mean, they'll ask a few simple questions to find out.

Bandwidth is usually expressed in Mbps (Megabytes per second), so it means how much data per time frame you can transfer.

Data is nothing more than a collection of bits and bytes. 1's and 0's.
Most people these days want unlimited data, meaning there is no cap on the amount of data that they can transfer each month. Some providers still make use of weekly or monthly data caps, e.g. 40GB/month. When you're dealing with caps, always read the small prints. There is a difference in download data, upload data or combined data. With more and more services like Netflix, people using online radio, youtube etc, most people max out those limits in less than a month. Caps are a thing of the past and providers that still deal with them should lose their customers to companies who allow their clients a bit more freedom.

PS. There is a difference between a home connection and a smart phone. Usually only the phone uses the connection, while at home you have a few computers + a few mobiles. Data transfers on computers are larger than on phones, simply due to the size of the display and the higher qualities that a computer can run at. That being said, when you talk about data or bandwidth, the same principles go for phone, home or even business internet connections.

[Tristan]

Here's an analogy for bandwidth:
Data is to available bandwidth as water is to the size of the pipe. In other words, as the bandwidth increases, so does the amount of data that can flow through in a given amount of time, just like as the size of the pipe increases, so does the amount of water that can flow through during a period of time.

Or: Think of bandwidth like a freeway. All cars (data) travel at the same speed, so to get more data from the internet to your computer faster, the freeway needs to be wider.

In other words, say 1 Mbps is the equivalent to a 1 lane freeway. And let’s say that you were trying to download an image, which is 5 Mb in size. So if you had a bandwidth of 1 Mbps (1 lane freeway) it would take you roughly 5 seconds to download the image.

Now let’s say that you have a 5 Mbps (bandwidth) connection, or a 5 lane freeway. How fast will you receive your image? 1 second.

Data: is the Amount of Gigabytes you have for a certain amount of time.
Here are some things that you do on the internet and how much bandwidth (and data) it uses up:

1 Web Page – 1 MB
1 Text Email – .97 MB
10 Min YouTube Video – 43 MB
Download 1 Image – 2.5 MB
30 Min of Gaming – 2.5 MB

Go to this website for more information: http://www.plugthingsin.com/internet/guide/speed/