What does signal-to-noise ratio actually mean? Find out inside PCMag's comprehensive tech and computer-related encyclopedia.

To be intelligible, any data that's transmitted by any means, electronic or otherwise, must rise above any accompanying noise. The measure of that intelligibility is called its signal-to-noise ratio.

When you’re hunting for a signal with your oscilloscope, the stronger it is, the better. If it’s weak, you might struggle to tease it out from other interference, or even from the noise floor ...

It is defined as the ratio of signal power to noise power." We have operated in and will continue to operate in an environment where the signal has been extremely low.

Quantization noise, most noticeable in audio with low signal levels, must be near to (because it’s correlated to the audio) or ideally above this ambient noise floor before it’s audible.

The signal-to-noise ratio results from almost every part of the flow cytometry assembly, as well as from experiment apparatus, sampling techniques, and staining methods.

When thinking about 5G, Phil says these questions must be asked: How can we improve the signal to noise ratio? How do we filter all this information and convey it to the customer?