Firstly, what is Nielsen's Law of Internet bandwidth?
Nielsen's Law of Internet bandwidth is similar to the more famous Moore's Law which says that computers double in capabilities every 18 months.
Nielsen's Law however, refers to the growth of Internet bandwidth.
For example over the last 21 years Internet speeds have grown as follows:
- 1983 - 1,000 bps (1/50th the speed of 56k dial-up)
- 1994 - 10,000 bps (10 x faster than 1983 speeds)
- 2004 - 1,500,000 bps (Broadband)
- 2010 - 12 Mbps (Predicted)
Nielsen's Law states that Internet bandwidth grows 50% in capacity every 12 months.
Why is this knowledge important to your business?
Access to scalable bandwidth is the key to your Internet strategy.
For example, for a business using a 2 Mbps Internet connection today, Nielsen's Law predicts that this same business will need a
3 Mbps connection a year from now. And by 2010 it will likely require a 20 Mbps connection!
This is an important consideration before you invest in a technology that may have no upgrade path beyond 2 Mbps. (Copper line technologies for example).
With this in mind, will your broadband solution meet your bandwidth needs in the future?
This is where Optic Fibre & Wireless (OFW) can help.
OFW can assist you to calculate your bandwidth needs and provide you with a future proof broadband solution.
Below are some handy tips for calculating Internet speeds.
How do I convert my bandwidth into "download speed"?
To convert your bandwidth into "download speed", divide the number of kbps (of your connection) by 8 to convert to kB/Sec,
Here are some examples:
Dial-up 56 kbps: divide 56 / 8 = download speed of 7 kB/Sec
ADSL 256 kbps: divide 256 / 8 = download speed of 32 kB/Sec
ADSL 512 kbps: divide 512 / 8 = download speed of 64 kB/Sec
ADSL 1,500 kbps: divide 1500 / 8 = download speed of 187.5 kB/Sec
NB. It is important to consider that these calculations do not take into account any network overhead. Allow a 10 - 20 % reduction in speeds for real world speeds. For example, the maximum download speed for a 56 kbps would rarely be more than 5 kB/Sec. ADSL 256 is up to 5 x faster (25 kB/Sec) than 56 kbps. Also, the Internet does not guarantee speeds for data tranfer. At peak times data traffic will be slower, just like motorcar traffic on a highway.
Data transfer rates for OFW broadband solutions and LANs are measured in Mbps and Gbps:
10 Mbps (10,000 kbps): 10,000 / 8 = 1,250 kB/Sec
(nearly one floppy diskette every second)
100 Mbps: 100,000 / 8 = 12,500 kB/Sec or 12.5 MB/Sec
(Over 8 floppy diskettes every second)
1 Gbps: 1,000,000,000 / 8 = 125,000,000 kB/Sec or
125,000 MB/Sec (Over 86,000 floppy diskettes every second)
Are you located nearby to high-bandwidth resources? Check here
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