throughput

rate at which bits transferred between sender / receiver

Type

average, rate over a longer period of time.

Instantaneous, rate at given point in time.

Differences with bandwidth

Same unit as bandwidth, however:

Bandwidth is wrt to a link.

Throughput is more general, can be e2e.

Example

Suppose your bandwidth is high (capacity), however your server sends packets verrrrrrrryyyyyyy slowly. As such, your throughput is low relative to bandwidth because your server does not send at max Network Bandwidth / capacity!

Another example

Suppose you have 2 water pipe links.

Throughput is the water pipe with lower cap

throughput

multimedia