Eeeeeek!!!!
Anyways, to continue about bandwith ....
Bandwith is the bits and bytes transferred from the server to your browser. Data passing through the pipe from the ISP network and servers to you. Text, backgrounds, graphics, pictures, videos, all the material is included that you see in the browser window on your screen. It's kind of like gallons of water or KWH of electricity.
All the hosted sites on the ISP's network as a whole pull bandwith from their "Big Pipe" that connects to the Internet at-large. ISPs must have a large enough "pipe" to carry all the sites and servers they host, or data transfer gets bottlenecked. Like if your entire neighborhood was served by a 2" water main, and *everybody* on the street turns on *all* the faucets in their houses at the same time, everybody would get just a trickle of water. Hosting services typically offer different bandwith packages at increasing price levels according to how much traffic a site is expected to get. When all the allocated bandwith is used during a billing period, the site effectively is denied traffic until the next period begins. Robert said above that allowed bandwith is 1000 GB of data per month. Comparing that as 1000 gallons of water ... once that amount is used, you get no more until next month.
Leaving a page open "static" (without refreshing it) does not use bandwith. Bandwith is used each time it's actively refreshed or viewed (some browsers may automatically refresh after a few mins). After the first viewing, page elements (text, pictures, etc.) are cached locally so not everything has to be downloaded again, the browser checks with the server to see what, if anything, has changed since the last view and downloads just the new material. You may have noticed that on long threads like the member pics thread. The first part of the thread that you've already seen loads quickly since it's reading local from your hard drive, but new pictures at the bottom take longer. Polling the server for changes uses bandwith as well, but not nearly so much. Keep in mind, however, that the local cache does automatically refresh or clear itself on a scheduled basis, so eventually all the content *is* re-downloaded on repeated viewings.
Anyways, to continue about bandwith ....
Bandwith is the bits and bytes transferred from the server to your browser. Data passing through the pipe from the ISP network and servers to you. Text, backgrounds, graphics, pictures, videos, all the material is included that you see in the browser window on your screen. It's kind of like gallons of water or KWH of electricity.
All the hosted sites on the ISP's network as a whole pull bandwith from their "Big Pipe" that connects to the Internet at-large. ISPs must have a large enough "pipe" to carry all the sites and servers they host, or data transfer gets bottlenecked. Like if your entire neighborhood was served by a 2" water main, and *everybody* on the street turns on *all* the faucets in their houses at the same time, everybody would get just a trickle of water. Hosting services typically offer different bandwith packages at increasing price levels according to how much traffic a site is expected to get. When all the allocated bandwith is used during a billing period, the site effectively is denied traffic until the next period begins. Robert said above that allowed bandwith is 1000 GB of data per month. Comparing that as 1000 gallons of water ... once that amount is used, you get no more until next month.
Leaving a page open "static" (without refreshing it) does not use bandwith. Bandwith is used each time it's actively refreshed or viewed (some browsers may automatically refresh after a few mins). After the first viewing, page elements (text, pictures, etc.) are cached locally so not everything has to be downloaded again, the browser checks with the server to see what, if anything, has changed since the last view and downloads just the new material. You may have noticed that on long threads like the member pics thread. The first part of the thread that you've already seen loads quickly since it's reading local from your hard drive, but new pictures at the bottom take longer. Polling the server for changes uses bandwith as well, but not nearly so much. Keep in mind, however, that the local cache does automatically refresh or clear itself on a scheduled basis, so eventually all the content *is* re-downloaded on repeated viewings.
i'll keep my fingers crossed that we can fix this.
