Throughput/Capacity/"Bandwidth"

Throughput per se is not directly perceived by the user, although a lack of throughput will increase waiting times and reduce the impression of responsiveness. However, "bandwidth" is widely used as a "marketing" metric to differentiate "fast" connections from "slow" ones, and many applications display throughput during long data transfers. Therefore users often have specific performance expectations in terms of "bandwidth", and are disappointed when the actual throughput figures they see is significantly lower than the advertised capacity of their network connection.

-- SimonLeinen - 07 Apr 2006