Kbps (kb/s or kbit/s) means kilobit per second (or kilobit). The word bit is a contraction of the English term "binary digit" which means "binary digit".
To measure the volume of data in transmissions (whether between computers or other devices) measurement in bits per unit of time is usually used.
I.e, to indicate how many bits are transmitted each second.
This measurement belongs to the International System of Units, which works as follows:
- Kilo = 1000;
- Mega = 1,000,000;
- Giga = 1,000,000,000.
Therefore:
- one kilobit per second (1 kbps) corresponds to sending or receiving 1000 bits per second;
- one megabit per second (1 mbps) corresponds to 1,000,000 bits per second;
- one gigabit per second (1 gbps) corresponds to 1,000,000,000 bits per second.
Bit x Byte
Bit it is the smallest unit of information being generally used to measure the volume of data transmitted between devices.
Already Byte is a unit used to designate the memory capacity of a device (CD, DVD, pen drive, etc).
In the abbreviations KB (kilobyte), MB (megabyte), GB (gigabyte), TB (terabyte), the byte initial is always capitalized to differentiate from the bit.
It is important to note that for many years, the value of a kilobyte, within the binary code (base 2), was understood to be 1024 bytes.
However, in December 1998, the International Electrotechnical Commission, the leading international organization in world standardization of electrotechnology, has approved prefixes for multiple binaries for use in the fields of data processing and transmission of Dice.
Thus, the prefixes were like:
1 kilobyte (kB) = 1000 bytes
1 MegaByte (MB) = 1000 kB = 1 000 000 bytes
1 Gigabyte (GB) = 1000 MB = 1 000 000 000 bytes
1 Terabyte (TB) = 1000 GB = 1 000 000 000 000 bytes