baud and bit rate in case of RS-232

[m4rtin]

If I connect to a network device over a console port, I usually choose the speed "9600" in my terminal program(I tend to use minicom). Some equipment support for example "115200" speed. However, is it bit rate or baud rate? I guess in case of RS-232 the bit rate is always the same as baud rate?

[Hideki]

For RS-232, one bit is one symbol, so you are absolutely right.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Depends how you interpret it...
baudrate determines the time between bits.
However as every byte has a start and a stop bit, the maximum throughput of actual data bits transmitted is 0.8 x the baudrate

[Hideki]

The start and stop bits are overhead on top of the useful data, but the baud- or bit-rate isn't concerned with that.

Baud rate is how many times the signal actually changes per second.
Bit rate can be higher (like QAM256), the same (like UART signals, including RS-232 voltage levels) or lower (like 10/100 Mbit Ethernet), depending on the type of modulation.

[digsys]

Addition: The bit-rate / baud-rate is the "frequency" of the stream, the "Byte" size may vary from a min of 10 to 15+
UARTS can have 2 stop bits, some include address-line decoding option and at least one I've used allowed for 12 data bits !
Then there are the IrDA variants, so a 9600 baud line may have max 960 Bytes down to ~620 or less. Check the UART specs

[IanB]

For RS-232, one bit is one symbol, so you are absolutely right.

Seconded. For RS-232 interfaces the bit rate is the same as the baud rate. Hence 9600 baud is 9600 bits per second. But as has been mentioned, not every bit is necessarily a data bit. There are start bits, stop bits and parity bits to consider. As a rule of thumb divide by 10 to get bytes per second, so that 9600 baud is ~960 bytes per second.