Bandwidth and Bitrate
When when when will people learn that data rate is not bandwidth. It is really annoying to keep having confusing conversations with IT contractors who use “bandwidth” when they mean bitrate (or datarate). To explain, bandwidth is the highest frequency your channel can transmitted minus the lowest frequency your channel can transmit, it is measured in Hertz. Bit rate is maximum number of digits your digital transmission line can cope with per second it is measured in bits per second (bps). There is a relationship between the two, but they are definately different. While I’m at it I’ll explain the difference between bit rate and data rate as well. While both of these quantities are measured in bps, data rate is the rate at which useful digits can go through your transmission line, where as bit rate is the rate of actual bits going down your transmission line. By way of example, a 100base-T LAN has a bitrate of 100Mbps… try actually getting 100Mbps of useful data down the line.
Laura Szypulski said,
December 7, 2004 @ 2213 GMT
You know Richard, just to add another fact to this… if a signal is even (ie: the signal is a mirror image over the y-axis) the bandwidth is sometimes defined at the highest frequency (not the highest minus the lowest) because in this situation it can be assumed that the negative side is the same
Though you are speaking of broadcasting terms, so your definition holds more weight.