Question 2.5

 

Symbol rate (cont.)

Bandwidth efficiency

The bandwidth efficiency of a communications link is a measure of how well a particular modulation format (and coding scheme) is making use of the available bandwidth.

Units for bandwidth efficiency of a digital communications link:

Bandwidth efficiency --> bits/second/Hz


For example, if a system requires 4 kHz of bandwidth to continuously send 8000 bps of information, the bandwidth efficiency of the link is:

Bandwidth efficiency = 8000 bps / 4000 Hz = 2 bits/second/Hz