1 mbps - what is this speed? Briefly about bits and bytes

Terms that denote the speed of the Internet, it is extremely difficult to understand a person who is far from this topic. For example, the provider offers the service of providing the Internet at a speed of 1 Mb / s, and you do not know whether it is a lot or not. Let's understand what it is - mbps, and how the speed of the Internet connection is measured at all.

Explanation of the abbreviation

The literal translation of "mbps" ( mbit per second ) is megabits per second. It is in these units that the speed of the connection is most often measured. All providers in their advertisements indicate the speed in megabits per second, so we should also deal with these values.

How much is 1 mbps?

To begin with, note that 1 bit is the smallest unit for measuring the amount of information. Along with the bit, people often use a byte, forgetting that these two concepts are completely different. Sometimes they say "byte", meaning "bit", and vice versa. Therefore, it is worth considering this issue in more detail.

So, 1 bit is the smallest unit of measure. 8 bits are one byte, 16 bits are two bytes, and so on. That is, you just need to remember that a byte is always 8 times larger than a bit.

Considering that both units are very small, for them in most cases they use prefixes "mega", "kilo" and "giga". What these prefixes mean, you should be aware from the school course. But if you forget, then it is worth recalling:

1. "Kilo" - multiplication by 1,000. 1 kilobit is equal to 1,000 bits, 1 kilobyte is equal to 1024 bytes.
2. "Mega" - multiplication by 1 000 000. 1 megabit is equal to 1,000 kilobits (or 1 000 000 bits), 1 megabyte is equal to 1024 kilobytes.
3. "Giga" - multiplication by 1 000 000 000. 1 gigabit is equal to 1,000 megabits (or 1 000 000 000 bits), 1 gigabyte is equal to 1024 megabytes.

In simple words, the connection speed is the speed of the information sent and received by the computer in one unit of time (per second). If the speed of your Internet connection is 1 mbps, what does this mean? In this case it means that the speed of your Internet is 1 megabit per second or 1,000 kilobits per second.

How much is this

Many users believe that mbps is a lot. In fact, this is not so. Modern networks are so developed that, given their capabilities, 1 mbps is nothing at all. Here is a calculation of this speed for the example of downloading files from the Internet.

We take into account that mbps are megabits per second. Let's divide the value 1 by 8 and get megabytes. Total 1/8 = 0,125 megabytes / second. If we want to download music from the Internet, provided that one track "weighs" 3 megabytes (usually tracks so much and "weighs"), we can download it in 24 seconds. Counting is easy: 3 megabytes (the weight of one track) should be divided into 0.125 megabytes / second (our speed). The result is 24 seconds.

But this only applies to an ordinary song. And if you want to download any movie, the size of 1.5 GB? Let's count:

• 1500 (megabytes): 0.125 (megabytes per second) = 12,000 (seconds) .

We translate seconds into minutes:

• 12,000: 60 = 200 minutes or 3.33 hours .

Thus, at the speed of the Internet 1 mbps, we will be able to download the movie, 1.5 GB in volume for 3.33 hours. Here you can judge for yourself whether it is long or not.

Given the fact that in large cities, Internet providers offer Internet speeds of up to 100 mbps, we could upload a movie with the same volume in just 2 minutes, not 200. That is 100 times faster. If we start from this, we can conclude that mbps is a low speed.

However, everything is relative. In some remote village, where it's difficult to even catch a GSM network, having the Internet at such a speed is cool. However, in a large metropolis with a huge competition between providers and mobile operators such a weak Internet connection can not be.

Conclusion

Now you know how to determine the speed of the Internet, and you will be able to understand the given units of measurement a little. Of course, get confused in them - just spit, but the main thing to remember is that the bit is the eighth part of the byte. A prefix "kilo", "mega" and "giga" only add three, six or nine zeros, respectively. If this is understood, then everything falls into place.