The terms bandwidth and data rate are frequently used interchangeably in telecommunications. Which can be perplexing at times. The term bandwidth is frequently used interchangeably with data rate. Every network connection has a data rate, which describes how quickly bits are transferred across a network, and a bandwidth, which is the number of bits per second that a link can send or receive. So here this article gives the difference between bandwidth and data rate to better understand this topic.
What is Bandwidth?
When a digital signal is sent, it is sent as an analog waveform, which can be expressed as a sum of many component sinusoidal waves of varying frequencies. The terms bandwidth in the field of communications refers to the frequency range of the component waves that make up the signal. The higher bandwidth, the more component frequency that can make up a signal, and the closer the transmitted waveform is to the original signal. In an ideal world, an infinite bandwidth would result in a carrier wave that is identical.
What is the Data rate?
The data rate refers to the rate at which data can be transferred in the field of communications. The term data refers to the number of bits in this context. As a result, data rate refers to the number of signals that can be sent per second. The data rate is also known as the bit rate.
Bandwidth vs Data rate | Difference between Bandwidth and Data rate:
- Bandwidth is the potential of the data that is to be transferred in a specific period of time, while the data rate is the amount of data transmitted during a specified time period over a network.
- Bandwidth is the number of bits per second that a link can send or receive, while the data rate is the speed of data transmission.
- Bandwidth is measured in bps, Mbps, or Gbps, while the data rate is normally measured in Mbps.
- Bandwidth shows the capacity of the channel, while the data rate shows the present speed of data transmission.
- Bandwidth is the physical layer property in the OSI model, while the data rate is common in all layers.
- Bandwidth refers to maximum data transmission speed, while the data rate refers to the actual data transmission speed.
- Bandwidth does not depend on the properties of sender or receiver, while the data rate gets affected by sender or receiver.
- Bandwidth shows the capacity of the channel, while the data rate shows the present speed of data transmission.
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