Bit rates

Decimal prefixes (SI)

Name Symbol Multiple
kilobit per second kbit/s
10
3
megabit per second Mbit/s
10
6
gigabit per second Gbit/s
10
9
terabit per second Tbit/s
10
12
Binary prefixes (IEC 60027-2)
kibibit per second Kibit/s
2
10
mebibit per second Mibit/s
2
20
gibibit per second Gibit/s
2
30
tebibit per second Tibit/s
2
40
Bit rate
From Wikipedia, the Iree encyclopedia
In telecommunications and computing, bitrate (sometimes written bit
rate, data rate or as a variable or
b
) is the number oI bits that are
conveyed or processed per unit oI time.
The bit rate is quantiIied using the bits per second (bit/s or bps) unit,
oIten in conjunction with an SI preIix such as kilo- (kbit/s or kbps),
mega- (Mbit/s or Mbps), giga- (Gbit/s or Gbps) or tera- (Tbit/s or Tbps).
Note that, unlike many other computer-related units, 1 kbit/s is
traditionally deIined as 1,000 bit/s, not 1,024 bit/s, etc., also beIore
1999 when SI preIixes were introduced Ior units oI inIormation in the
standard IEC 60027-2.
The Iormal abbreviation Ior "bits per second" is "bit/s" (not "bits/s", see
writing style Ior SI units). In less Iormal contexts the abbreviations "b/s"
or "bps" are oIten used, though this risks conIusion with "bytes per
second" ("B/s", "Bps"). 1 Byte/s (Bps or B/s) corresponds to 8 bit/s (bps
or b/s).
Contents
1 Bit rates at various protocol layers
1.1 Physical layer gross bit rate
1.2 Physical layer net bit rate
1.3 Network throughput
1.4 Goodput (data transIer rate)
1.5 Multimedia encoding bit rate
2 PreIixes
3 Progress trends
4 Bitrates in multimedia
4.1 Audio
4.1.1 MP3
4.1.2 Other audio
4.2 Video
4.3 Notes
5 See also
6 ReIerences
7 External links
Bit rates at various protocol layers
Physical layer gross bit rate
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In digital communication systems, the gross bitrate
|1|
, raw bitrate
|2|
, data signaling rate
|3|
or uncoded
transmission rate
|2|
is the total number oI physically transIerred bits per second over a communication link,
including useIul data as well as protocol overhead. The gross bit rate is related to, but should not be conIused
with, the symbol rate in baud, symbols/s or pulses/s. Gross bit rate can be used interchangeably with "baud"
when each modulation transition oI a data transmission system carries exactly one bit oI data; something not true
Ior modern modem modulation systems and modern LANs, Ior example.
For most line codes and modulation methods:
Symbol rate _ Gross bit rate
More speciIically, a line code representing the data using pulse-amplitude modulation with 2

diIIerent voltage
levels, or a digital modulation method using 2

diIIerent symbols, Ior example 2

amplitudes, phases or
Irequencies, can transIer bit/symbol, or bit/pulse. This results in:
Gross bit rate Symbol rate
The exception Irom the above is some selI-synchronizing line codes, Ior example Manchester coding and return-
to-zero (RTZ) coding, where each bit is represented by two pulses (signal states), resulting in:
Gross bit rate Symbol rate/2
A theoretical upper bound Ior the symbol rate in baud, symbols/s or pulses/s Ior a certain analog bandwidth in
hertz is given by the Nyquist law:
Symbol rate _ Nyquist rate 2 bandwidth
In practice this upper bound can only be approached Ior line coding schemes (or baseband transmission) and Ior
so-called vestigal sideband digital modulation. Most other digital carrier-modulated schemes (or passband
transmission schemes), Ior example ASK, PSK and QAM, can be characterized as double sideband modulation,
resulting in the Iollowing approximative relation:
Symbol rate _ Bandwidth
Physical layer net bit rate
The physical layer net bitrate, peak bitrate, useful bit rate, information rate
|1|
, payload rate, coded
transmission rate
|2|
, effective data rate
|2|
or wire speed (inIormal language) oI a digital communication link is
the capacity excluding the physical layer protocol overhead, Ior example time division multiplex (TDM) Iraming
bits, redundant Iorward error correction (FEC) codes, equalizer training symbols and other channel coding.
Error-correcting codes are common especially in wireless communication systems and broadband modem
standards. The relationship between the gross bit rate and net bit rate is aIIected by the FEC code rate according
to the Iollowing.
Net bit rate _ Gross bit rate code rate
Some operational systems indicate the "connection speed" (inIormal language) oI a network access technology
or communication device. The connection speed oI a technology that involves Iorward error correction typically
reIers to the physical layer in accordance with the above deIinition.
For example, the net bitrate (and thus the "connection speed") oI a IEEE 802.11a wireless network is the net bit
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rate oI between 6 and 54 Mbit/s, while the gross bit rate is between 12 and 72 Mbit/s inclusive oI error-
correcting codes. The net bit rate oI ISDN Basic Rate InterIace (2 B-channels 1 D-channel) oI 646416
144 kbit/s also reIers to the payload data rates, while the signalling rate is 160 kbit/s.
The net bit rate oI the Ethernet 100Base-TX physical layer standard is 100 Mbit/s, while the gross bitrate is 125
Mbit/second, due to the 4B5B (Iour bit over Iive bit) encoding. In this case, the gross bit rate is equal to the
symbol rate or pulse rate oI 125 Mbaud, due to the NRZI line code.
In communications technologies without Iorward error correction and other physical layer protocol overhead,
there is no distinction between gross bit rate and physical layer net bit rate. For example, the net as well as gross
bit rate oI Ethernet 10Base-T is 10 Mbit/s. Due to the Manchester line code, each bit is represented by two
pulses, resulting in a pulse rate oI 20 Mbaud.
The "connection speed" oI a V.92 voiceband modem typically reIers to the gross bit rate, since there is no
additional error-correction code. It can be up to 56,000 bit/s downstreams and 48,000 bit/s upstreams. A lower
bit rate may be chosen during the connection establishment phase due to adaptive modulation - slower but more
robust modulation schemes are chosen in case oI poor signal-to-noise ratio. Due to data compression, the actual
data transmission rate or throughput (see below) may be higher.
The channel capacity, also known as the Shannon capacity, is a theoretical upper bound Ior the maximum net
bitrate, exclusive oI Iorward error correction coding, that is possible without bit errors Ior a certain physical
analog node-to-node communication link.
Net bit rate _ Channel capacity
The channel capacity is proportional to the analog bandwidth in hertz. This proportionality is called Hartley's
law. Consequently the net bit rate is sometimes called digital bandwidth capacity in bit/s.
Note that the term line rate in some textbooks is deIined as gross bit rate, in others as net bit rate.
Network throughput
Main article. Throughput
The term throughput, essentially the same thing as digital bandwidth consumption, denotes the achieved
average useIul bit rate in a computer network over a logical or physical communication link or through a network
node, typically measured at a reIerence point above the datalink layer. This implies that the throughput oIten
excludes data link layer protocol overhead. The throughput is aIIected by the traIIic load Irom the data source in
question, as well as Irom other sources sharing the same network resources. See also Measuring network
throughput.
Goodput (data transfer rate)
Main article. Goodput
Goodputdata transfer rate reIers to the achieved average net bit rate that is delivered to the application
layer, exclusive oI all protocol overhead, data packets retransmissions, etc. For example, in the case oI Iile
transIer, the goodput corresponds to the achieved file transfer rate. The Iile transIer rate in bit/s can be
calculated as the Iile size (in bytes), divided by the Iile transIer time (in seconds), and multiplied by eight.
As an example, the goodput or data transIer rate oI a V.92 voiceband modem is aIIected by the modem physical
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layer and data link layer protocols. It is sometimes higher than the physical layer data rate due to V.44 data
compression, and sometimes lower due to bit-errors and automatic repeat request retransmissions.
II no data compression is provided by the network equipment or protocols, we have the Iollowing relation:
Goodput _ Throughput _ Maximum throughput _ Net bit rate
Ior a certain communication path.
Multimedia encoding bit rate
In digital multimedia, bit rate oIten reIers to the number oI bits used per unit oI playback time to represent a
continuous medium such as audio or video aIter source coding (data compression). The encoding bit rate oI a
multimedia Iile is the size oI a multimedia Iile in bytes divided by the playback time oI the recording (in
seconds), multiplied by eight.
In case oI realtime streaming multimedia, the encoding bit rate is the goodput that is required to avoid interrupts.
For streaming multimedia without interrupts, we have the Iollowing relationship:
Encoding bit rate Required goodput
The term average bitrate is used in case oI variable bitrate multimedia source coding schemes.
A theoretical lower bound Ior the encoding bit rate Ior lossless data compression is the source inIormation rate,
also known as the entropv rate.
Entropy rate _ Multimedia bit rate
Prefixes
When quantiIying large bit rates, SI preIixes (also known as Metric preIixes or Decimal preIixes) are used, thus:
1,000 bit/s rate 1 kbit/s (one kilobit or one thousand bits per second)
1,000,000 bit/s rate 1 Mbit/s (one megabit or one million bits per second)
1,000,000,000 bit/s rate 1 Gbit/s (one gigabit or one billion bits per second)
Binary preIixes have almost never been used Ior bitrates, although they may occasionally be seen when data
rates are expressed in bytes per second (e.g. 1 kByte/s or kBps is sometimes interpreted as 1000 Byte/s,
sometimes as 1024 Byte/s). A 1999 IEC standard (IEC 60027-2) speciIies diIIerent abbreviations Ior Binary and
Decimal (SI) preIixes (e.g. 1 kiB/s 1024 Byte/s 8192 bit/s, and 1 MiB/s 1024 kiB/s), but these are still not
very common in the literature, and thereIore sometimes it is necessary to seek clariIication oI the units used in a
particular context.
Progress trends
These are examples oI physical layer net bit rates in proposed communication standard interIaces and devices:
WAN modems Ethernet LAN WiFi WLAN Mobile data
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1972: Acoustic
coupler 300 baud
1977: 1200 baud
Vadic and Bell
212A
1986: ISDN
introduced with two
64 kbit/s channels
(160 kbit/s gross bit
rate)
1990: v.32bis
modems: 2400 /
4800 / 9600 / 19200
bit/s
1994: v.34 modems
with 28.8 kbit/s
1995: v.90 modems
with 56 kbit/s
downstreams, 33.6
kbit/s upstreams
1999: v.92 modems
with 56 kbit/s
downstreams, 48
kbit/s upstreams
1998: ADSL up to 8
Mbit/s,
2003: ADSL2 up to
12 Mbit/s
2005: ADSL2 up
to 24 Mbit/s
1972: IEEE
802.3 Ethernet
2.94 Mbit/s
1985: 10b2 10
Mbit/s coax
thinwire
1990: 10bT 10
Mbit/s
1995: 100bT
100 Mbit/s
(125 Mbit/s
gross bit rate)
1999: 1000bT
(Gigabit) 1
Gbit/s (1.25
Gbit/s gross bit
rate)
2003:
10GBASE 10
Gbit/s
WiFi WLANs
1997: 802.11 2
Mbit/s
1999: 802.11b
11 Mbit/s
1999: 802.11a
54 Mbit/s (72
Mbit/s gross bit
rate)
2003: 802.11g
54 Mbit/s (72
Mbit/s gross bit
rate)
2005: 802.11g
(proprietary)
108 Mbit/s
2007: 802.11n
600 Mbit/s
1G:
1981: NMT 1200 bit/s
2G:
1991: GSM CSD and
D-AMPS 14.4 kbit/s
2003: GSM Edge 57.6
kbit/s down, 28.8 kbit/s
up
3G:
2001: UMTS-FDD
(WCDMA) 384 kbit/s
2007: UMTS HSDPA
14.4 Mbit/s
2008: UMTS HSPA
14.4 Mbit/s down, 5.76
Mbit/s up
2009: HSPA
(Without MIMO) 28
Mbit/s downstreams
(56 Mbit/s with 2x2
MIMO), 22 Mbit/s
upstreams
2010: CDMA2000
EV-DO Rev. B 14.7
Mbit/s downstreams
Pre-4G:
2007: Mobile WiMAX
(IEEE 802.16e) 144
Mbit/s down, 35 Mbit/s
up.
2009: LTE 100 Mbit/s
downstreams (360
Mbit/s with MIMO
2x2), 50 Mbit/s
upstreams
For more examples, see List oI device bandwidths.
Bitrates in multimedia
In digital multimedia, bitrate represents the amount oI inIormation, or detail, that is stored per unit oI time oI a
recording. The bitrate depends on several Iactors:
The original material may be sampled at diIIerent Irequencies
The samples may use diIIerent numbers oI bits
The data may be encoded by diIIerent schemes
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The inIormation may be digitally compressed by diIIerent algorithms or to diIIerent degrees
Generally, choices are made about the above Iactors in order to achieve the desired trade-oII between
minimizing the bitrate and maximizing the quality oI the material when it is played.
II lossy data compression is used on audio or visual data, diIIerences Irom the original signal will be introduced;
iI the compression is substantial, or lossy data is decompressed and recompressed, this may become noticeable in
the Iorm oI compression artiIacts. Whether these aIIect the perceived quality, and iI so how much, depends on
the compression scheme, encoder power, the characteristics oI the input data, the listener`s perceptions, the
listener's Iamiliarity with artiIacts, and the listening or viewing environment.
The bitrates in this section are approximately the minimum that the average listener in a typical listening or
viewing environment, when using the best available compression, would perceive as not signiIicantly worse than
the reIerence standard:
,"
%/
32 kbit/s MW (AM) quality
96 kbit/s FM quality - This is questionable since FM broadcast is transmitted in analog 30Hz-15khz.
Similarly one cannot compare directly an LP record to CD using kbit/s.
128160 kbit/s Standard Bitrate quality; diIIerence can sometimes be obvious (e.g. lack oI low
Irequency quality and high Irequency "swashy" eIIects)
|citation needed|
224320 kbit/s VBR to highest MP3 quality. 320 kbit/s comparable, virtually indistinguishable to CD
quality.
Other audio
800 bit/s minimum necessary Ior recognizable speech (using special-purpose FS-1015 speech codecs)
2.15 kbit/s - minimum bitrate available through the open-source Speex codec
8 kbit/s telephone quality (using speech codecs)
32-500 kbit/s -- lossy audio as used in Ogg Vorbis
256 kbit/s - Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) MP2 bit rate required to achieve a high quality signal
|4|
400 kbit/s1,411kbit/s lossless audio as used in Iormats such as Free Lossless Audio Codec, WavPack or
Monkey's Audio to compress CD audio
1,411.2 kbit/s Linear PCM sound Iormat oI Compact Disc Digital Audio
5,644.8 kbit/s DSD (A trademarked implementation oI PDM) sound Iormat oI Super Audio CD
|5|
Video
16 kbit/s videophone quality (minimum necessary Ior a consumer-acceptable "talking head" picture
using various video compression schemes)
128 384 kbit/s business-oriented videoconIerencing quality using video compression
1.15 Mbit/s max VCD quality (using MPEG1 compression)
|6|
3.5 Mbit/s typ - Standard-deIinition television quality (with bit-rate reduction Irom MPEG-2 compression)
9.8 Mbit/s max DVD (using MPEG2 compression)
|7|
8 to 15 Mbit/s typ HDTV quality (with bit-rate reduction Irom MPEG-4 AVC compression)
19 Mbit/s approximate - HDV 720p (using MPEG2 compression)
|8|
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24 Mbit/s max - AVCHD (using MPEG4 AVC compression)
|9|
25 Mbit/s approximate - HDV 1080i (using MPEG2 compression)
|10|
29.4 Mbit/s max HD DVD
40 Mbit/s max Blu-ray Disc (using MPEG2, AVC or VC-1 compression)
|11|
Notes
For technical reasons (hardware/soItware protocols, overheads, encoding schemes, etc.) the bitrates used
by some oI the compared-to devices may be signiIicantly higher than what is listed above. For example:
Telephone circuits using law or A-law companding (pulse code modulation) 64 kbit/s
CDs using CDDA PCM 1.4 Mbit/s
See also
AC3
Audio bit depth
Average bitrate
Bandwidth (computing)
Baud (symbol rate)
Clock rate
Code rate
Constant bitrate
Data rate units
Data signaling rate
Measuring network throughput
Spectral eIIiciency
Variable bitrate
References
This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration document
"Federal Standard 1037C" (http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/Is-1037/Is-1037c.htm) (in support oI MIL-STD-188).
`

Dayan Adionel Guimares, Digital Transmission: A Simulation-Aided Introduction with VisSim/Comm,

Spinger 2009 (http://books.google.com/books?idx4jOplMbLx0C&pgPA692&dqgrossbitrate&hlsv&
ei6QVKTKiTGoKQjAeA0OzXDA&saX&oibookresult&ctresult&resnum3&
ved0CDMQ6AEwAg#vonepage&q22gross20bit20rate222022inIormation20rate22&IIalse) ,
section 8.1.1.3 Gross Bit Rate and InIormation Rate
1.
`

Kaveh Pahlavan, Prashant Krishnamurthy, Networking Fundamentals (http://books.google.com

/books?idWOCrSSIxE-EC&pgPA133&dq22rawdatarateis22&hlsv&
eiDgxKTMGbM9jNjAI7t7HYDA&saX&oibookresult&ctresult&resnum5&
ved0CEkQ6AEwBA#vonepage&q22raw20data20rate20is22&IIalse) John Wiley and Sons, 2009
2.
3 Network Dictionary (http://books.google.com/books?idOnHh23IXDUC&pgPA135&
dqdictionary22datasignalingrate22&hlsv&eihQhKTPO4KsTKjAe--aHYDA&saX&oibookresult&
ctresult&resnum4&ved0CEAQ6AEwAw#vsnippet&qdata20signaling20rate&IIalse) , Javvin
technologies inc. 2007,
3.
3 Page 26 oI BBC R&D White Paper WHP 061 June 2003, DAB: An introduction to the DAB Eureka system and
how it works http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp-pdI-Iiles/WHP061.pdI
4.
3 Extremetech.com, Leslie Shapiro, July 2, 2001. Surround Sound. The High-End. SACD and DJD-Audio.
(http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1180143,00.asp) Retrieved on May 19, 2010.
2 channels, 1 bit, 2822.4 kHz DSD audio (2x1x2,822,400) 5,644,800bits/s
5.
^ http://www.icdia.co.uk/cdprosupport/encoding/pink/mpeg1specs.htm 6.
^ http://dvd.sourceIorge.net/dvdinIo/dvdmpeg.html 7.
^ http://www.hdv-inIo.org/HDVSpeciIications.pdI 8.
^ http://www.avchd-inIo.org/Iormat/index.html 9.
^ http://www.hdv-inIo.org/HDVSpeciIications.pdI 10.
Bit rate - Wikipedia, the Iree encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitrate
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^ See White Paper Blu-ray Disc Format 2.B Audio Visual Application Format SpeciIications Ior BD-ROM Version
2.4 May 2010, page 17, 3.3 Video Streams http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/DownloadableIile/BD-ROM-
AV-WhitePaper10060428129-15916.pdI
11.
External links
DVD-HQ bitrate calculator (http://dvd-hq.inIo/bitratecalculator.php) Calculate bitrate Ior various types
oI digital video media.
Maximum PC - Do Higher MP3 Bit Rates Pay OII? (http://www.maximumpc.com/article
/dohighermp3bitratespayoII?page02C0)
Retrieved Irom "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitrate"
Categories: Data transmission , Units oI measure
This page was last modiIied on 26 November 2010 at 12:28.
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