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--- glossary:glossary_b [2018/11/21 10:45] – Bob Vetterlein
+++ glossary:glossary_b [2019/09/05 17:31] – [Baud] Clarify. Also link to Cnet is no longer working tgerbic
@@ Line 13: / Line 13: @@
-Most people use baud to describe modem speeds in bits per second–but they are wrong. They may say a 9,600-bps modem transmits at 9,600 baud, but really baud is a measure of how frequently sound changes on a phone line. Modern modems transmit more bits with fewer changes in sound, so baud and bps numbers are not equal. However, only editors, pedants, and communications engineers now care about the distinction. But if you run into members of these groups, use bps instead of baud.\\
+Baud in communications refers to changes per second. In the very early days of MODEMs, for example, each bit sent equaled a single change, so baud equaled bits per second (BPS). The terms were initially interchangable. As newer modulation methods (the way the signal is sent or encoded) came along a baud represented more than one bit per second. For example a single baud may have represented two, three or four bits for each change. From that point forward, baud and BPS were no longer the same, though many people still use them interchangably. For the sake of clarity, use BPS to represent the number of bits sent per second.
-[[http://www.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/Terms/baud.html|http://www.cnet.com/Resources/Info/Glossary/Terms/baud.html]]
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-Byte per second. In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (sometimes written bitrate or Rbit) is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. In digital multimedia, bit rate is the number of bits used per unit of time to represent a continuous medium such as audio or video. It is quantified using the bit per second (bit/s) unit or some derivative such as Mbit/s.\\
+Bits per second. In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (sometimes written bitrate or Rbit) is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. In digital multimedia, bit rate is the number of bits used per unit of time to represent a continuous medium such as audio or video. It is quantified using the bit per second (bit/s) unit or some derivative such as Mbit/s.\\
 While often referred to as "speed", bit rate does not measure distance/time but quantity/time, and thus should be distinguished from the "propagation speed" (which depends on the transmission medium and has the usual physical meaning).