Baud Rate vs Data Transfer Rate
Data transfer rates are measured in bits per second (bps). This is an indication of the useful data that has been transmitted from the transmitter to the receiver. For example, in Figure 1 the useful data is only seven bits, whilst the total number of bits (or signal changes) amounts to ten. The additional three bits are overhead bits.
Baud rate refers to the number of signal changes per second, irrespective of the presence of any useful data in the bit stream.