Difference Between Bit Rate and Baud Rate

Bit Rate vs Baud Rate

Both bit rate and baud rate are parameters of measuring the speed of data transfer. Although bit rate and baud rate can be of the same value, in some cases, these two terms have different meanings. Bit rate is the amount of bits being transferred within a unit time, where baud rate is the amount of symbols being transferred. A symbol may contain one or more bits.

Bit Rate

Bit is the basic unit of measuring information. Value of a bit can be ‘0’ or ‘1’ (or ‘true’ or ‘false’). For example, to represent the decimal number 6 in binary, we need 3 bits, as six is 110 in binary.

Bit rate is the amount of bits being transferred within a second, which is called as bits per second or bps. Since modern communication can transfer a large amount of data within a second, we find bit rates in kbps, Mbps, or Gbps. For example, ‘Gigabit Ethernet’ connections can transfer 109 bits per second.

Baud Rate

In communication, baud rate is the amount of symbols being transferred. Symbols carry different amount of information in different technologies.

For example, in the technique known as 64QAM, there are 64 levels that can be represented in a single symbol. Since 64 = 2⁶, we need 6 bits to represent 64 levels from 000000 (0) to 111111 (63). Therefore, a symbol representing one of the 64 levels is equivalent to representing 6 bits. Hence, transferring 1 symbol is equal to transferring 6 bits. Therefore, it can be derived that bit rate = 6 x baud rate for 64QAM.