Throughput is the size of the transmitted data divided by the time it takes for the transmission to finish. It is useful for understanding the typical or usual speed of a connection. The average rate of successful data transfer. The effective bandwidth is necessary for understanding the amount of traffic a connection can support. It is always lower than the theoretical maximum and sometimes considered the best usable bandwidth. The theoretical maximum transfer rate cannot be achieved in actual installations and is usually only used for comparison purposes, for example, to determine how well a connection is functioning compared to its theoretical maximum potential.

The highest transmission rate under ideal circumstances. While there is no way to measure the total available bandwidth, there are many ways to define measured bandwidth, depending on the need. Most internet speed tests use this method to calculate the connection speed of a user’s computer to the internet. The result is converted into bps by dividing the size of the files by the amount of time the transfer required.

The resulting measurements are then expressed as a per-second number.Īnother method of measuring bandwidth is to transfer a file or several files of known size and then count how long the transfer takes. Typically, to measure bandwidth, the total amount of traffic sent and received over a specific period of time is counted. This software provides a graphical interface and charts for measuring bandwidth trends over longer periods of time, and can measure traffic between different interfaces. Each side displays the number of bytes transmitted and the time that each packet needs to complete the one-way trip. One host is the receiver and the other host is the sender. This tool measures throughput on an IP network between two hosts. Common bandwidth measuring tools are, for example:

You usually measure bandwidth using software or firmware and a network interface.

Network bandwidth tools