The data rate of a network connection is normally measured in units of bits per second, generally abbreviated as bps instead of b/s. Network equipment manufacturers rate the maximum network bandwidth level their products support using the standard units of Kbps, Mbps, and Gbps.
definition of measurement in units
- One kilobit per second equals 1,000 bits per second. This is sometimes written as kbps, Kb/sec or Kb/s but all of them carry the same meaning.
- One megabit per second equals 1000 Kbps or one million bps. It's also expressed as Mbps, Mb/sec, and Mb/s.
- One gigabit per second equals 1000 Mbps, one million Kbps or one billion bps. It's also abbreviated as Gbps, Gb/sec, and Gb/s.
For historical reasons, data rates for disk drives and some other non-network computer equipment are sometimes shown in bytes per second (Bps with an uppercase B) rather than bits per second (bps with a lowercase 'b').
- one KBps equals one kilobyte per second
- one MBps equals one megabyte per second
- one GBps equals one gigabyte per second
Because one byte equals eight bits, converting these ratings to the corresponding lowercase 'b' form can be done simply multiplying by 8:
- one KBps equals 8 Kbps
- one MBps equals 8 Mbps
- one GBps equals 8 Gbps
To avoid confusion between bits and bytes, networking professionals always refer to network connection speeds in terms of bps (lowercase 'b') ratings.
Most network equipment features Mbps speed ratings.
- Home internet connections can range from low values like 1 Mbps up to 100 Mbps and even higher
- 802.11g Wi-Fi connections rate at 54 Mbps
- Older Ethernet connections rate at 100 Mbps
- 802.11n Wi-Fi connections rate at 150 Mbps, 300 Mbps, and higher increments