Editing Network throughput (section)

===Multi-user considerations===
Ensuring that multiple users can harmoniously share a single communications link requires some kind of equitable sharing of the link. If a bottleneck communication link offering data rate ''R'' is shared by "N" active users (with at least one data packet in queue), every user typically achieves a throughput of approximately ''R/N'', if [[fair queuing]] [[best-effort]] communication is assumed.

* [[Packet loss]] due to [[network congestion]]. Packets may be dropped in switches and routers when the packet queues are full due to congestion.
* Packet loss due to [[bit error]]s.
* Scheduling algorithms in routers and switches. If fair queuing is not provided, users that send large packets will get higher bandwidth. Some users may be prioritized in a [[weighted fair queuing]] (WFQ) algorithm if differentiated or guaranteed [[quality of service]] (QoS) is provided.
* In some communications systems, such as satellite networks, only a finite number of channels may be available to a given user at a given time. Channels are assigned either through preassignment or through Demand Assigned Multiple Access (DAMA).<ref>Roddy, 2001, 370 - 371</ref> In these cases, throughput is quantized per channel, and unused capacity on partially utilized channels is lost.