bps

Abbreviation for Bits Per Second, a measurement of data transmission speed over some communications medium. Not to be confused with Bps (upper case ‘B’), which is Bytes Per Second, or Baud, which is a measure of the number of times a digital signal changes state in one second. Baud, sometimes called the “baud rate,” is almost always a lower figure than bps for a given digital signal because some signal modulation techniques allow more than one data bit to be transmitted per change state. Bits Per Second applies specifically to how many digital bits are transmitted per second. It is common to see it noted as kbps (Kilobits Per Second) or Mbps (Megabits Per Second).