This article is about the general meaning of the term "data stream". For the UK-specific DSL technology called "Data stream", see the IP Stream article.

In telecommunications, a data stream is a sequence of digitally encoded coherent signals (packets of data or datapackets) used to transmit or receive information that is in transmission.

According to Planetmath A data stream is an ordered pair $\backslash left(\; s,\backslash Delta\; \backslash right)$ where: $s$ is a sequence of tuples, $\backslash Delta$ is the sequence of time intervals (i.e. Rational or Real numbers) and each $\backslash Delta\; \_\{n\}\; >\; 0$. telecommunications

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