Network Efficiency Calculator
Calculate the ratio of useful data throughput to total bandwidth consumed.
Inputs
Payload + all headers + preamble + IFG
Overall Network Efficiency
93.98%
Framing Efficiency
94.93%
Overhead per Frame
78bytes
Step by step
Framing efficiency
1460 / 1538 * 100
= 94.93%
Retransmission factor
1 - 1/100
= 0.99
Overall efficiency
94.93 * 0.99
= 93.98%
How it works
Network efficiency measures what fraction of consumed bandwidth carries useful application data versus protocol overhead and retransmissions. Framing efficiency accounts for headers (Ethernet, IP, TCP), preamble, and inter-frame gap. Retransmissions further reduce efficiency by consuming bandwidth to resend already-sent data.
Formula
Overall efficiency
efficiency = (payload / total_frame) * (1 - retransmission_rate)
- P
- Payload bytes
- F
- Total frame bytes on wire
- r
- Retransmission rate (fraction)
Frequently Asked Questions
What causes low network efficiency?
Small payload sizes (many small packets means proportionally more header overhead per byte of data), high retransmission rates from lossy links, and additional encapsulation layers (VPN, VXLAN) all reduce efficiency below the theoretical maximum.
What is typical Ethernet efficiency for TCP traffic?
With 1460-byte TCP payloads in standard 1518-byte Ethernet frames (plus 20 bytes preamble/IFG), framing efficiency is about 95%. Actual efficiency is somewhat lower due to TCP ACKs, retransmissions, and smaller-than-MSS segments.