Connexions module: m13375

What is Bandwidth?
Christopher Chikalimba-Gama

This work is produced by The Connexions Project and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License

Abstract This module denes bandwidth and gives examples with respect to the denition.

1 Bandwidth

Bandwidth is a central concept in many elds, including information theory, radio communications, signal processing, and spectroscopy. Denition 1: Bandwidth Is a measure of frequency range, measured in hertz. Example The range of frequencies within which the performance of the antenna, with respect to some characteristics, conforms to a specied standard. (2.4-2.5GHz antenna has 100MHz bandwidth).
Denition 2: Bandwidth

The amount of data that can be transmitted in a xed amount of time, expressed in bits per second(bps) or bytes per second. Example A V.90 modem supports a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 56 Kbps. Fast Ethernet supports a theoretical maximum bandwidth of 100 Mbps. According to the Shannon-Hartley theorem, the data rate of reliable communication is directly proportional to the frequency range of the signal used for the communication. In this context, the word bandwidth can refer to either the data rate or the frequency range of the communication system (or both). Bandwidth is a key concept in many applications. In radio communications, for example, bandwidth is the range of frequencies occupied by a modulated carrier wave, whereas in optics it is the width of an individual spectral line or the entire spectral range. There is no single universal precise denition of bandwidth, as it is vaguely understood to be a measure of how wide a function is in the frequency domain. For dierent applications there are dierent precise denitions. For example, one denition of bandwidth could be the range of frequencies beyond which the frequency function is zero. This would correspond to the mathematical notion of the support of a function (i.e., the total "length" of values for which the function is nonzero). Another denition might not be so strict and ignore the frequencies where the frequency function is small. Small could mean less than 3 dB below (i.e., less than half of) the maximum value, or it could mean below a certain absolute value. In short,
Version
1.1: Feb 14, 2006 6:19 pm US/Central

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

http://cnx.org/content/m13375/1.1/

Connexions module: m13375

as with any denition of the width of a function, there are many denitions available, which are suitable for dierent applications.
2 Analog systems

For analog signals, which can be mathematically viewed as a function of time, bandwidth is the width, measured in hertz, of a frequency range in which the signal's Fourier transform is nonzero. This denition can be relaxed wherein bandwidth would be the range of frequencies that the signal's Fourier transform has a power above a certain threshold, say 3 dB within the maximum value, in the frequency domain. Bandwidth of a signal is a measure of how rapidly it uctuates with respect to time. Hence, the greater the bandwidth, the faster the variation in the signal. The word bandwidth applies to signals as described above, but it could also apply to systems. In the latter case, to say that a system has a certain bandwidth is a short-hand for saying that the transfer function of the system has a certain bandwidth. As an example, the 3 dB bandwidth of the function depicted in the gure is f2 f1, whereas other denitions of bandwidth would yield a dierent answer.
-3dB bandwidth)

Figure 1

The fact that real baseband systems have both negative and positive frequencies can lead to confusion about bandwidth, since they are sometimes referred to only by the positive half, and one will occasionally see expressions such as B = 2W, where B is the total bandwidth, and W is the positive bandwidth. For instance, this signal would require a lowpass lter with cuto frequency of at least W to stay intact. The bandwidth of an electronic lter is the part of the lter's frequency response that lies within 3 dB of the response at the center frequency of its peak. In signal processing and control theory the bandwidth is the frequency at which the closed-loop system gain drops to 3 dB. In basic electric circuit theory when studying Band-pass and Band-reject lters the bandwidth represents the distance between the two points in the frequency domain
http://cnx.org/content/m13375/1.1/

Connexions module: m13375

where the signal is \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}} of the maximum signal strength. In photonics, the term bandwidth occurs in a variety of meanings: the bandwidth of the output of some light source, e.g., an ASE source or a laser; the bandwidth of ultrashort optical pulses can be particularly large the width of the frequency range that can be transmitted by some element, e.g. an optical ber the gain bandwidth of an optical amplier the width of the range of some other phenomenon (e.g., a reection, the phase matching of a nonlinear process, or some resonance) the maximum modulation frequency (or range of modulation frequencies) of an optical modulator the range of frequencies in which some measurement apparatus e.g., a powermeter) can operate he data rate (e.g., in Gbit/s) achieved in an optical communication system
3 Digital systems

In a digital communication system, bandwidth has a dual meaning. In the technical sense, it is a synonym for baud rate, the rate at which symbols may be transmitted through the system. It is also used in the colloquial sense to describe channel capacity, the rate at which bits may be transmitted through the system. Hence, a 66 MHz digital data bus with 32 separate data lines may properly be said to have a bandwidth of 66 MHz and a capacity of 2.1 Gbit/s  but it would not be surprising to hear such a bus described as a having a "bandwidth of 2.1 Gbit/s." Similar confusion exists for analog modems, where each symbol carries multiple bits of information so that a modem may transmit 56 kbit/s of information over a phone line with a bandwidth of only 12 kHz. In discrete time systems and digital signal processing, bandwidth is related to sampling rate according to the Nyquist-Shannon sampling theorem. Bandwidth is also used in the sense of commodity, referring to something limited or something costing money. Thus, communication costs bandwidth, and improper use of someone else's bandwidth may be called bandwidth theft. [1] Wikipedia 2006. Last accessed 13 February 2006. [2] Computing and Networking. page http://compnetworking.about.com/od/speedtests/g/bldef_bandwidth.htm (last accessed 13 February 2006). [3] Webopedia. page http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/bandwidth.htm(last accessed 13 February 2006).

References

http://cnx.org/content/m13375/1.1/