Bit error rate
the ratio between the number of incorrect bits transmitted to the total number of bits
In digital transmission, the number of bit errors is the number of received bits of a data stream over a communication channel that have been altered due to noise, interference, distortion or bit synchronization errors.
The bit error rate (BER) is the number of bit errors per unit time. The bit error ratio (also BER) is the number of bit errors divided by the total number of transferred bits during a studied time interval. Bit error ratio is a unitless performance measure, often expressed as a percentage.
The bit error probability pe is the expected value of the bit error ratio. The bit error ratio can be considered as an approximate estimate of the bit error probability. This estimate is accurate for a long time interval and a high number of bit errors.
Example
As an example, assume this transmitted bit sequence:
1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1
and the following received bit sequence:
0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1,
The number of bit errors (the underlined bits) is, in this case, 3. The BER is 3 incorrect bits divided by 9 transferred bits, resulting in a BER of 0.333 or 33.3%.
Packet error ratio
The packet error ratio (PER) is the number of incorrectly received data packets divided by the total number of received packets.
“Bit error rate” enters the record as the ratio between the number of incorrect bits transmitted to the total number of bits. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what error, rate and ratio can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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