Speed is measured in?

• A. Data rate in bits per second (b/s)
• B. Data rate in bytes per second (B/s)
• C. Hertz
• D. Tokens per second

Answer: (A)

Speed in data networks refers to how much data can be transmitted each second. The standard unit for this data rate is bits per second, often written as bps (with higher units like kbps or Mbps). Using bytes per second isn’t the conventional measure for network speed, even though you could convert between bits and bytes, because networking protocols and bandwidth are described in bits. Hertz measures frequency (cycles per second), not the amount of data moved, so it doesn’t describe speed of data transfer. Tokens per second isn’t a standard metric for network speed either. Therefore, the data rate in bits per second is the best and most widely used measure of speed here.