The bps stands for bits per second. It is the standard unit for measuring the rate of data transfer, or "communication speed," between two points. It quantifies how many individual binary digits (bits) can be transmitted or received in one second. A higher bps value indicates a faster connection. The unit is often used with SI prefixes: kilobits per second (kbps, thousands of bps), megabits per second (Mbps, millions of bps), and gigabits per second (Gbps, billions of bps). It's important to distinguish bps (bits per second) from Bps (Bytes per second), where one Byte equals 8 bits. Therefore, a 100 Mbps network connection can theoretically transfer a maximum of 12.5 megabytes of data per second (100 million bits / 8 bits per byte). For programmable instruments, the communication speed is a key parameter.
An older RS-232C interface might operate at 9600 bps, which is sufficient for sending simple text-based commands but would be slow for transferring large data logs. A modern instrument with a USB or LAN (Ethernet) interface will have much higher speeds, typically ranging from 12 Mbps (USB Full Speed) to 1 Gbps (Gigabit Ethernet). Higher communication speeds are crucial when an application requires fast, real-time control of a power supply or needs to acquire large datasets from a measuring instrument at a high sampling rate. The required bps depends entirely on the application's demands for data throughput and responsiveness.
G3 standard FAX is 14.4 kbps
Super G3 standard is 33.6 kbps
IEEE802.11 for wireless LAN is 2 Mbps
IEEE802.11a for wireless LAN is 11 Mbps
IEEE802.11b for wireless LAN is 54 Mbps
IEEE802.11g wireless LAN is 54 Mbps
IEEE802.11n for wireless LAN ranges from 65 to 600 Mbps
IEEE802.11ac for wireless LAN ranges from 433 Mbps to 6.93 Gbps
Wired LANs use 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps standards.