Wordnet 3.0
NOUN (1)
1.
a data transmission rate;
the maximum amount of information (bits/second) that can be transmitted along a channel;
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
bandwidth \band"width`\ n.
The maximum rate of information transfer (measured in
bits/second) that can be carried by a communication channel.
"The bandwidth of an analog telephone line is less than 100
kilobits per second."
[WordNet 1.5]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
bandwidth
n 1: a data transmission rate; the maximum amount of information
(bits/second) that can be transmitted along a channel
The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):
bandwidth
n.
1. [common] Used by hackers (in a generalization of its technical meaning)
as the volume of information per unit time that a computer, person, or
transmission medium can handle. ?Those are amazing graphics, but I missed
some of the detail ? not enough bandwidth, I guess.? Compare low-bandwidth
; see also brainwidth. This generalized usage began to go mainstream
after the Internet population explosion of 1993-1994.
2. Attention span.
3. On Usenet, a measure of network capacity that is often wasted by
people complaining about how items posted by others are a waste of
bandwidth.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
bandwidth
The difference between the highest and lowest
frequencies of a transmission channel (the width of its
allocated band of frequencies).
The term is often used erroneously to mean data rate or
capacity - the amount of data that is, or can be, sent
through a given communications circuit per second.
[How is data capacity related to bandwidth?]
[Jargon File]
(2001-04-24)