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Q1: Why is the transmission rate or the bandwidth measured in Bps, why do we need the "seconds" part if it only measures the amount if bits it can hold?

If transmission rate is the amount of bits the link can handle at once, and the propagation speed is the speed at which the bits travel through the link, does the transmission rate depend on propagation speed?

Q2:

If propagation speed is high, it means it can propagate the bits whenever the router pushes them in and so, can hold more in a second, or do packets travel together, meaning the router has to push whole packet before the bits can start propagating?

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A network device doesn't see the data "all at once." The bandwidth is measured in bits-per-second because the data is processed by the device one at a time because a piece of copper or a fiber optic strand can only carry one bit at a time. So a 100Mbps connection can transfer 100 million bits per second.

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  • So does it mean that it depends on the propagation speed. When we mention that a connection's bandwidth is 100Mbps, we do not mention the length of the link, so if the length of the cable is too long, it wont be able to transfer 100mbit in a second, can it? Then how exactly is the propagation speed different from bandwidth?
    – khajvah
    Oct 27, 2014 at 15:29
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    Propogation speed is some fraction of the speed of light. This would not limit bandwidth, but it does create latency. This latency is usually orders of magnitude less than the delay caused by the processing of routers and switches.
    – Mr. Mascaro
    Oct 27, 2014 at 15:31

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