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Very briefly, bit rate is the rate at which individual bits are sent. Data rate is the rate at which data is effectively transferred. Not all bits carry data. Some are used for various out of ba...
Answer
#1: Initial revision
by
Olin Lathrop
·
2021-12-26T14:15:44Z (almost 3 years ago)
Very briefly, bit rate is the rate at which individual bits are sent. Data rate is the rate at which data is effectively transferred. Not all bits carry data. Some are used for various out of band signalling purposes, like synchronizing both ends, delimiting bytes, indicating that there is currently no data, etc. In general, these kind of bits are called <i>protocol overhead</i>. See also <a href="https://electrical.codidact.com/posts/279484">Bit-rate vs Baud-rate</a>. In that question, baud rate is what you are referring to as bit rate here, and bit rate is what you are calling data rate.