Thursday, 24 September 2015

How do you measure an internet connection

We are all confused when it comes to this questions. What are bits and bytes?


An internet connection is measured differently from data sizes. What we mean is, a file on your computer is measured in bytes and your internet connection is measured in bits.So megabits and megabytes aren't the same. There is a big difference.
A byte is much bigger than bit.  1 Byte = 8 bits Which means every byte contains 8 bits.

Did I loose you with all this maths?

Let's try with an example. You go online to download a file of 50 megabytes (MB) in size, you are currently using a  50 megabit per second (Mbps) broadband connection. To download this file it won't take you 2 seconds, it will take 8 x 1 seconds because 1 MB (megabyte) is 8 times bigger than a Mb (megabit). If you have perfect speed it will take you 8 seconds to download (in theory).

How to identify a bit or a Byte?
The spellings are different. A bit will be in lower case "b", a Byte will be in upper case "B".
Internet connections always are in Mbps (mega bits per second) Files are in MB's (mega byte).

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