26 June 2020

Difference Between Frequency and Bandwidth

Frequency and bandwidth both quantities that come in the study for electronics science. In everyday usage the two terms may have similar connotations, however, in electronic science, the two terms have two separate meanings. Here this article gives the main key difference between them to better understand this topic.

Bandwidth and frequency both are the measuring terms of the networking system. The main key difference between bandwidth and frequency is that bandwidth measures the amount of data transferred per second while the frequency is to measure the number of oscillation of the data signal per second. 

 Definition of Frequency:


Frequency is defined as the number of vibrations or oscillation present in a wave in a unit time. The SI unit of measuring the frequency is hertz, written as Hz.

Definition of Bandwidth:


Bandwidth is a term in networking used to measure the maximum amount of data that can be transmitted per unit time.

Difference between frequency and bandwidth:

  • The frequency is denoted by the f, while the bandwidth is denoted by the B.
  • The frequency of a signal is specified as cycle/second, while the bandwidth is generally specified in terms of bits/sec.
  • The frequency of a signal defines the total number of complete cycles of a waveform that are existing per sec, while the bandwidth is the range of frequency of signal while transmission thus shows its capacity of some data flow.
  • Bandwidth measures the amount of data that a connection can transmit in a per unit time whereas the frequency is a number of data packets arrived in per unit time.
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