Megabit per second

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(Redirected from Mbit/s)

Bit rates
Decimal prefixes (SI)
Name	Symbol	Multiple
kilobit per second	kbit/s	10³
megabit per second	Mbit/s	10⁶
gigabit per second	Gbit/s	10⁹
terabit per second	Tbit/s	10¹²
Binary prefixes (IEC 60027-2)
kibibit per second	Kibit/s	2¹⁰
mebibit per second	Mibit/s	2²⁰
gibibit per second	Gibit/s	2³⁰
tebibit per second	Tibit/s	2⁴⁰

A megabit per second (Mbit/s or Mbps) is a unit of data transfer rate equal to 1,000,000 bits per second or 1,000 kilobits per second. 8 Megabits per second is equivalent to 1 Megabyte per second (ie. 8 Mbps = 1 MBps). Hence 1 Megabits per second = 0.125 Megabyte per second (ie. 1 Mbps = 0.125 MBps)).

The bandwidths of consumer broadband internet services are often rated in Mbit/s.

Data streams representing compressed video are often measured in Mbit/s:

2 Mbit/s — VHS quality
8 Mbit/s — DVD quality
55 Mbit/s — HDTV quality

More specific examples found on standard Comcast digital streams (transmitted in MPEG2 format):

2-3 Mbit/s — a low-definition digital channel with a very clean signal
5-6 Mbit/s — a low-definition digital channel with a digitized ("dirty") analog signal (or just an analog channel)
8-12 Mbit/s — a medium to high-definition digital channel with DVD quality data (equivalent to HBO-HD)
18-20 Mbit/s — a high-definition digital channel at 1080i (equivalent to Discovery HD)

Another example, Network cards and cables are typically available in 10/100/1000 Mbit/s. This means they can support a transfer rate of 10 or 100 or 1000 Mbit/s.

[edit] Interface speeds

Interface	Megabits per second (Mbps)	Megabytes per second (MBps)
Firewire 400 (IEEE 1394)	400 Mbps	50 MBs
Firewire 800 (IEEE 1394b)	800 Mbps	100 MBs
USB, Low speed	1.5 Mbps	0.1876 MBps
USB, Full speed	12 Mbps	1.5 MBps
USB, Hi speed	400 Mbps	50 MBs