Burst transmission

In telecommunication, the term burst transmission or data burst has the following meanings:

1. Any relatively high-bandwidth transmission over a short period. For example, a download might use 2 Mbit/s on average, while having "peaks" bursting up to, say, 2.4 Mbit/s.
2. Transmission that combines a very high data signaling rate with very short transmission times - i.e., the message is compressed. This is popular with the military and spies, who both wish to minimize the chance of their radio transmissions being detected, i.e. low probability of intercept (LPI) and low probability of recognition (LPR).
3. In the 1980s, the term 'data burst' was used for a technique used by some United Kingdom and South African TV programmes to transmit large amounts of primarily textual information: they would display multiple pages of text in rapid succession, usually at the end of the programme; viewers would video record this and then read it later by playing it back using the pause button after each page.
4. Operation of a data network in which data transmission is interrupted at intervals.

Burst transmission, however, enables communications between data terminal equipment (DTEs) and a data network operating at dissimilar data signaling rates.

See also

Look up burst in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Spread spectrum

References

 This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration document "Federal Standard 1037C" (in support of MIL-STD-188).