Re: baud vs. baud rate

[Peter Neilson <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>]

Fred Ridder wrote:
> One important nit to pick with Robert's answer:
> 
> When talking about a data transmission rate, the correct abbreviation is kbps rather than kbit/sec. In the case of data transmission, the "kilo" applies to the unit "bits per second" (or bps) rather than referring to kilobits (a different unit) per second. The difference is that 1 kbps is 1000 bits per second, while 1 kilobit per second would be 1024 (2^10) bits. 

Depending upon one's audience and one's purpose it may also be helpful 
to disambiguate abbreviations for "bits per second" from "bytes per 
second" or to conflate the two if trying to create a false impression. 
Some people really don't know bits from bytes and will make their buying 
decisions upon a feeling of which number seems bigger, sort of like 
mauve having more RAM.

The word baud is helpful for giving a feeling of technicality, even if 
misused, just as knot gives a feeling of nauticality. The knot, also, is 
a rate, one nautical mile per hour, but "knots per hour" occurs 
frequently. Google reports 66,100 such entries, the first few devoted to 
discussing the confusion. There are 1280 Google entries for "baud per 
second" but the first few jump immediately into the matter of bits per baud.

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