Ethical Hacking Essentials Practice Test

What term describes the amount of information transmitted over a connection, measured in bits per second?

1. Latency

2. Throughput

3. Bandwidth

4. Packet loss

The correct answer is: Bandwidth

The term that describes the amount of information transmitted over a connection, measured in bits per second, is bandwidth. Bandwidth specifically refers to the maximum capacity of a network connection, indicating how much data can be transferred in a given amount of time. This is a crucial factor in understanding network performance, as higher bandwidth typically allows for faster data transfer rates. In the context of network performance, bandwidth is often confused with throughput, but they are not the same. Throughput measures the actual rate of successful data transfer over a network in a specific time frame, often impacted by factors such as network congestion and overhead. Latency refers to the time it takes for data to travel from the source to the destination, which can affect user experience but does not directly represent the volume of data transferred. Packet loss involves lost packets during transmission and indicates issues in the network that can degrade performance, but again does not measure the capacity of data transfer itself. Thus, bandwidth precisely captures the idea of the maximum potential data transmission rate, which is why it is the correct term to use in this context.