Editing Network throughput (section)

{{Short description|Rate at which data is processed in communication networks}}
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'''Network throughput''' (or just '''throughput''', when in context) refers to the rate of message delivery over a [[communication channel]] in a [[communication network]], such as [[Ethernet]] or [[packet radio]]. The data that these messages contain may be delivered over physical or logical links, or through [[network nodes]]. Throughput is usually measured in [[bits per second]] ({{nowrap|bit/s}}, sometimes abbreviated bps), and sometimes in '''packets per second''' ({{nowrap|p/s}} or pps) or data packets per [[time-division multiplexing|time slot]].

The '''system throughput''' or '''aggregate throughput''' is the sum of the data rates that are delivered over all channels in a network.<ref>[[Guowang Miao]], Jens Zander, K-W Sung, and Ben Slimane, Fundamentals of Mobile Data Networks, Cambridge University Press, {{ISBN|1107143217}}, 2016.</ref> Throughput represents [[Bandwidth (computing)|digital bandwidth]] consumption.

The throughput of a communication system may be affected by various factors, including the limitations of the underlying physical medium, available processing power of the system components, [[end-user]] behavior, etc. When taking various [[protocol overhead]]s into account, the useful rate of the data transfer can be significantly lower than the maximum achievable throughput; the useful part is usually referred to as [[goodput]].