Which statement about bandwidth and packet dropping is correct?

• A. Bandwidth limitation is more risky than dropping packets
• B. Bandwidth limitation is less risky than dropping packets
• C. They are equally risky
• D. Neither applies

Answer: (B)

Managing congestion involves choosing how to handle excess traffic: throttling bandwidth versus dropping packets. Limiting bandwidth slows all traffic in a controlled way and, importantly, does not discard any data. This keeps packets intact, connections stable, and services usable, even though throughput is reduced. Dropping packets, by contrast, discards data as it travels, which forces retransmissions, can trigger TCP backoff, increases latency and jitter, and often degrades the perceived quality of real-time or interactive applications. Because losing data harms reliability and user experience, bandwidth limitation is the safer, less risky option for maintaining service continuity.