What term describes the effective data rate that represents usable data transferred per unit time, excluding most protocol overhead?

• A. throughput
• B. goodput
• C. latency
• D. jitter

Answer: (B)

This question is about the usable data rate that arrives at the application, excluding protocol overhead. Goodput is the rate at which useful payload data is transferred per unit time after removing the bytes used for headers, framing, acknowledgments, and any retransmissions. In other words, goodput measures the actual data the user cares about delivered each second, not the total bits that may include overhead. Throughput accounts for all data transferred successfully, including overhead, so it can be higher than the useful data rate. Latency is the time it takes for a single packet to reach the destination, and jitter is the variation in that delay, which are about timing rather than data rate.