Bandwidthin

Bandwidthin is a term used in computer networking to describe the portion of a network's capacity allocated for data entering a device, link, or segment. It is commonly used interchangeably with inbound bandwidth and is often contrasted with bandwidthout or outbound bandwidth. In many contexts bandwidthin refers to both the nominal capacity of an inbound path and the practical inbound throughput observed under traffic shaping, queueing, and policy controls.

Measuring bandwidthin involves collecting interface counters and flow records. Network management tools commonly compute bandwidthin as the rate of bytes entering an interface over a time window, reported as instantaneous, average, or peak values. Techniques include SNMP, NetFlow, sFlow, and IPFIX. In cloud and virtualized environments, bandwidthin is also tracked for virtual network interfaces and per-tenant ingress.

Applications include capacity planning, performance monitoring, and quality-of-service implementation. Bandwidthin metrics help detect bottlenecks, validate service-level agreements for inbound traffic, and support rate limiting and traffic shaping to protect upstream links and ensure fair access among users.

Limitations and caveats: inbound measurements can be affected by buffering and queuing within endpoints and intermediate devices, asymmetrical links, and the presence of encryption or tunneling. Because bandwidthin is not universally standardized as a separate protocol, its definition can vary between vendors and monitoring systems, requiring careful alignment of measurement windows and units.

See also: Bandwidth, Inbound traffic, Throughput, QoS.