How much stuff you can send through a connection. A full page of English text is about 16,000 bits. A fast modem can move about 15,000 bits in one second. A unit used to measure the number of data bits a modem can transfer in one second. One baud is how many signals a modem can handle in one second.
Information is measured in bits, and bits come in the signal.
Higher baud modems can send and receive more signals in a second, and the faster speeds also cram more bits into a signal. Divide the bits per second by 10 to get an approximate idea of how many characters per second a modem is transmitting data. A 28.8 modem can move 28,800 bits per second. Some are very large and the line between a BBS and a system like CompuServe gets crossed at some point, but it is not clearly drawn. Byte A set of Bits that represent a single character.