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Networking Fundamentals · Foundational

Throughput

The actual rate of successful data delivery over a link or path, usually lower than the rated bandwidth.

Definition

Throughput accounts for protocol overhead, retransmissions, congestion, latency effects on TCP windowing and device performance limits. Goodput refers specifically to useful application data excluding headers and retransmissions. Tools such as iperf measure throughput between two endpoints.

Example

A 1 Gbps link that sustains 940 Mbps of TCP traffic has 940 Mbps throughput.

Exam tip

When a scenario says the link is 1 Gbps but transfers run at 200 Mbps, the question is about throughput, not bandwidth.

Don't confuse it with

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