BPS stands for bits per second, the standard unit measuring the rate at which digital data is transmitted or processed.
In networking and data communications, BPS quantifies how many individual bits—binary values of 0 or 1—are transferred in one second. Higher BPS values represent faster transmission speeds, supporting bandwidth-heavy applications such as video surveillance, media streaming, and industrial data transfer. Ethernet and other communication standards are often defined by their BPS rates, such as 100 Mbps or 10 Gbps. It is important to distinguish bits per second (BPS) from bytes per second (B/s), since one byte equals eight bits. Misinterpreting these units can create errors when evaluating system performance or infrastructure requirements.
BPS measurements are standardized by organizations including IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), ISO/IEC (International Organization for Standardization / International Electrotechnical Commission), and TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association).
The concept of BPS originated with telegraph and early modem systems, where speeds were measured in bits sent per second over copper lines. As technology advanced, the metric expanded to Ethernet, fiber optics, and wireless systems, evolving from kilobit to gigabit and now multi-gigabit speeds in commercial and industrial networks.