Kilobit per second

A kilobit per second is a unit of measurement used in telecommunications and computing to calculate the speed at which information is transferred over a network. Its abbreviation and most common form is kbps. The international standard symbol is kbit/s. The abbreviation kb/s stands for kilobyte per second.

Equivalent to 1000 bits per second = 1000 bit/s.

Example:

64 kbit/s = 1000 x 64 = 64,000 bit/s

Sometimes data is expressed in bytes per second (B/s), so one kB/s is equal to one kilobyte per second, one MB/s is equal to one megabyte per second, and one GB/s is equal to one gigabyte per second.

Note that data transfer rate units are listed in powers of base 10.

In the case of information units referred to storage/processing, the same abbreviation is usually used to indicate powers of base 2, this is a common mistake, because binary prefixes must be used to designate powers of base 2.

Example 1: 1 kbit = 1000 bit = 10³ bit

Example 2: 1 Kibit = 1024 bit = 2¹⁰ bit.

Example 3: 1 kB = 1000 B = 10³ B.

Example 4: 1 KiB = 1024 B = 2¹⁰ bytes = (2¹⁰) 8 bit = 2¹³ bit. Kilobits per second refers to the rate at which 1 kilobit is transferred in one second.[1] A kilobit refers to 1,000 bits of information and is taken from the words "kilo" and "bit". Kilo is a common prefix used with metric units of measurement to denote groups of 1000. The bit is the smallest unit of information in a digital system. This belongs to a binary value.[^02]

Kbps should not be confused with KBps as the small "b" is used to denote bits while the "B" uppercase would mean a byte, which is a group of 8 bits. Therefore, a kilobit would refer to 1,000 bits while a kilobyte would refer to 8,000 bits.[^03] Internet data is reported in bytes, but speeds are measured in bits per second, since data transmission is done 1 bit at a time.

Previous technology used Kbps to measure data transmission speed, however recent innovations and improvements in the industry have led to faster speeds, eliminating the common use of Kbps and replacing it with data speeds measured with Mbps, and even Gbps. 1 Mbps equals 1,000 Kbps or 1,000,000 bps. 1 Gbps is equal to 1,000,000,000 Kbps or 1 billion bps. Current systems whose speeds run at Kbps include:[^04]

28.8K - 28.8Kbps modem 36.6K - 36.6Kbps modem 56K - 56Kbps modem ISDN - 128Kbps DSL / Cable Modems - 512 Kbps (lower end) ADB - 256Kbps