Bit Rate to Bandwidth Calculator

This tool converts Bit rate to Bandwidth in a Communication system

Enter the

  • Bit rate and pick the appropriate units – bps, kbps, Mbps, Gbps
  • Signal-to-Noise Ratio in dB

What is Bandwidth and Bit Rate?

Definition of Bandwidth

Bandwidth refers to the range of frequencies transmitted over a communication channel. It is usually measured in hertz (Hz).

Definition of Bit Rate

Bit rate, on the other hand, is the amount of data that can be transmitted per second. It is measured in bits per second (bps) and represents the number of bits that can be sent or received in one second.

The relation between bit rate and bandwidth is according to the Shannon-Hartley Theorem.

C = B*Log2(1 + S/N)

or

B = C/Log2(1 + S/N)

where,

  • C is the bit rate
  • B is the bandwidth
  • S/N is the signal-to-noise ratio

Using the calculator above we can see that as the Signal-to-Noise ratio improves, the amount of bandwidth to transmit a fixed bit rate decreases.

The discussion on this page is for noisy channels. This tool converts data rate to bandwidth in a noiseless channel

Calculation Example

To transfer 100 kbps with a Signal-to-noise ratio of 10 dB requires 29 kHz of bandwidth. Improving the SNR to 30 dB means to maintain the same bit rate requires only 10 kHz of bandwidth.

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