Bandwidth-Delay Product
Bandwidth-delay product
BDP
The Bandwidth-Delay Product (BDP) multiplies a transmission rate by a round-trip time or similar interval to estimate how much data may be in flight on the path during that time.
In context
It helps explain the amount of in-flight data needed in TCP transmission. Actual throughput also depends on the receive window, congestion control, loss, and other factors.
Example
Multiplying a hypothetical 1 Gbit/s by an RTT of 10 ms gives 10 Mbit, or 1.25 MB. This alone does not guarantee application speed.
Key distinction
Examine latency and endpoint send and receive conditions together with link speed.
