Shannon Channel Capacity Calculator
Calculate the ideal AWGN channel capacity from bandwidth and a received signal-to-noise power ratio.
YOUR CALCULATION
Result
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Calculation steps
Work through one step at a time or reveal the complete calculation. The steps use your current inputs.
How to calculate
Convert SNR to a linear power ratio and apply the Shannon–Hartley bound for an additive-white-Gaussian-noise channel.
Capacity=B log2(1+10^(SNRdB/10))
Worked example
A 1 MHz channel with 20 dB SNR has ideal capacity about 6.65821148 Mbit/s. At 0 dB SNR the bound is one bit per second per Hz.
Assumptions and input details
Information-theoretic ideal bound, not achievable modem throughput. Bandwidth and SNR must refer to the same receiver band. Coding overhead, fading, interference, modulation, implementation loss and latency are excluded.
Unit definitions
Unit selection is independent of language. Each selector contains only units for its physical quantity. Calculations use defined base units internally.
SI prefixes are explicit: for example, milli means one thousandth, micro one millionth and kilo one thousand. Changing a unit changes the interpretation of the entered number.
Using this calculator
Can I enter my own problem?
Yes. Replace the example values with your own inputs. The result, calculation steps, tables and applicable diagrams update from those inputs. Blank or invalid values clear the result; example values are never silently substituted for missing inputs.
Are the results exact?
Results use floating-point arithmetic and displayed rounding. Read the formula, assumptions and any stated data precision before interpreting the result.
Is my input uploaded?
The calculation runs in your browser. No account, file upload or external AI service is required. Inputs are not saved between page reloads.
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