It refers to the amount of data that can be transferred over a given period of time.

There exists lots of confusion between data transfer and bandwidth. While the former is used in general, latter is used to describe the rate of flow of data. Bandwidth is usually measured in terms of kbit/s or Mbit/s. Bandwidth can refer to many things like available bandwidth or consumed bandwidth. In addition to this, there exists Digital bandwidth which is calculated by dividing the data amount with applicable playback time. Few people tend to use less complicated terms like throughput, channel capacity, and net bit rate and so on. The correct way to define bandwidth is web hosting is calculating the right amount of data that is transferred in a given month.