What are Throughput and Bandwidth?

These words both mean measuring the amount of data that gets between two places in a network.

Estimating your practical wireless throughput and bandwidth is as much an art as a science. There are a large number of factors to consider, including interference, distance, load, CPU speeds, packet size, distribution of traffic, whether QoS is used, etc. Also, the actual amount of useful data carried is reduced by various overhead in the network, for example when VPN security is used.

When applied to the performance of a protocol such as 802.11g, throughput and bandwidth refer to the theoretical maximum, not the guaranteed performance. This is because the international community which designs the protocols is primarily concerned that all the equipment all operates together. They make no requirement that all equipment meet a performance standard. Of course, NETGEAR makes every effort to also have high practical performance!

This article compares the theoretical and practical speeds of wireless protocols.

Related Topics:

Maximum wireless signal rate derived from IEEE Standard 802.11 specifications. Actual data throughput will vary.
Network conditions and environmental factors, including volume of network traffic,
building materials and construction, and network overhead, lower actual data throughput rate.

N101532.asp Aug. 25, 2005