Gigabit is a data communication term which means one billion bits. It is used particularly for measuring the data amount transferred in a second in between two points of telecommunication. The usual short term for Gigabits per second is Gbps.

There are some sources that define a gigabit as 1,073,741,824 bits. A bit anyway is a binary number system unit but in data communications, bits are separate signal pulses which can be counted with the use of the decimal number system.

See also

• Gigabit Ethernet
• How gigabit Ethernet works

It is a high speed form of Ethernet. An Ethernet is a local area network technology which can deliver rates of data transfer of a gigabit per second.

A gigabit Ethernet is a transmission technology which is based on the format of Ethernet frame and protocol is being used in local area networks (LANs). It provides a data rate of 1 billion bits per second (one gigabit) and is being used as a backbone in many network enterprises.

The gigabit Ethernet is transmitted through an optical. Existing Ethernet LANs with 10 and 100 Mbps cards can be fed into a Gigabit Ethernet backbone. On the contrary, the ATM competes with the gigabit Ethernet. Recently, a 10-Gigabit Ethernet which is its newer standard has become available.

The Ethernet Cat 5 cables have eight wires which are usually presented by 4 pairs, although under the 10BaseT and 100BaseT standards or respectively 10 Mbps and 100 Mbps, only two pairs of the cables are used.

One pair is usually for transmitting data while the other pair is for receiving data.