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Commonly confused · Networking Fundamentals

Bandwidth vs Throughput vs Latency: What's the Difference?

Bandwidth is the maximum theoretical data rate of a link, throughput is the actual data rate achieved, and latency is how long it takes data to travel from source to destination. A link can have huge bandwidth and still feel slow if latency is high.

vs

Throughput

Full definition
vs
BandwidthThroughputLatency
MeasuresCapacityActual delivered data rateDelay
Unitsbits per second (Mbps, Gbps)bits per secondmilliseconds
AnalogyWidth of the highwayCars that actually get through per minuteTime for one car to make the trip
Affected byMedium and interface speedCongestion, errors, overhead, retransmissionsDistance, hops, queuing, processing
Tool to checkInterface speed or provider SLAiperf, speed testsping round-trip time
Example1 Gbps Ethernet portDownload running at 620 Mbps40 ms round trip
Remember it

Bandwidth is the pipe size, throughput is the water that flows, latency is how long the water takes to arrive.

Exam tip

Exams test whether you know throughput is always at or below bandwidth, and that geostationary satellite links suffer from latency rather than bandwidth. Goodput, throughput minus overhead, may also appear.

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