Megabits Per Second (Mbps)

Megabits Per Second (Mbps)

What Does Megabits Per Second (Mbps)Mean?

Megabits Per Second (Mbps) is a measurementunit applied to digital data transfer rates (DTR) related to any type of mediaor computer. One Mb equals one million (1,000,000 or 106) bits or 1,000kilobits (Kb). One Mbps is capable of downloading one million bits of data persecond. The International System of Units (SI) defines the mega prefix as a 106multiplier or one million (1,000,000) bits. The binary mega prefix is 1,048,576bits or 1,024 Kb. The SI and binary differential is approximately 4.86 percent.

Central processing units (CPU) are built with data control instructionsfor bits--the smallest data measurement unit. Bits are magnetized and polarizedbinary digits that represent stored digital data in random access memory (RAM)or read-only memory (ROM). A bit is measured in seconds and characterized byhigh-voltage 1 (on) or 0 (off) values. Mb continue to apply to a number ofmeasurement contexts, including:

Internet/Ethernet data: Download and data transfer rate (DTR) speeds asMbps. Data stora ge: 16-bit game cartridges with eight Mb storage,including Mega Drive (Genesis) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System(SNES). Random-access memory (RAM) and read only memory (ROM): Adouble-data-rate three (DDR3) chip contains 512 Mb. Mbps is commonly used whenindicating high speed data rates of mobile telephony systems. A typical Webfile transfer is in megabytes (MB). For example, a network connection with aneight Mbps DTR must reach a Web DTR of one megabyte (MB) per second (MBps). In2000, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) incorporatedthe International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) formal approval of SImetric prefixes (for example, MB as one million bytes and KB as one thousandbytes). Newly added metric terms include: Kibibyte (KiB) equals 1,024 bytes.Mebibyte (MiB) equals 1,048,576 bytes. Gibibyte (GiB) equals 1,073,741,824bytes.