Asymmetric

Asymmetric is a term used in telecommunications to describe a situation whereby the bandwidth required or supported is different in each direction.

Services can be asymmetric in either way. Web browsing and file downloading need a bigger bandwidth from the network to the customer (downstream) than from the customer to the network (upstream). If the user has its own web server or streaming audio server, the bandwidth needed upstream will be higher than the bandwith needed downstream.