1 Mbps What home internet speed do you really need

Question from user

Hello.

Please tell me, I have an Internet channel of 15/30 Mbps, files in uTorrent are downloaded at a speed of (approximately) 2-3 MB/s. How can I compare the speed, is my ISP cheating me? How many megabytes should be at a speed of 30 megabits / s? Confused by the numbers...

Good day!

A similar question is very popular, they ask it in different interpretations (sometimes, very menacingly, as if someone had deceived someone). The bottom line is that most users confuse different units : as grams and pounds (also Megabit and Megabyte).

In general, to solve this problem, you will have to resort to a small digression to the computer science course, but I will try not to be boring 👌. Also in the article along the way I will analyze all the questions regarding this topic (about speed in torrent clients, about MB / s and Mbps).

👉 Note

Educational program on Internet speed

And so, with ANY Internet provider(at least, I personally have not seen others) Internet connection speed is indicated in Megabit/s (moreover, pay attention to the prefix "BEFORE"- no one guarantees that your speed will always be constant; this is impossible).

In any torrent program(in the same uTorrent), by default, the download speed is displayed in MB/s(Megabytes per second). That is, I am leading to the fact that Megabytes and Megabits are different values.

👉Usually, the declared speed in the tariff of your ISP in Mbps divided by 8 to get the speed that uTorrent (or its analogues) will show you in MB / s (but see more on this below, there are nuances).

For example, the rate of the Internet provider for which the question was asked is 15 Mbps. Let's try to translate it into a normal way ...

👉 Important! (from the computer science course)

The computer does not understand numbers, only two values are important for it: there is a signal or there is no signal (i.e. " 0 " or " 1 "). These are either yes or no - that is, "0" or "1" is called " Bit" (the smallest unit of information).

In order to be able to write some letter or number, one unit or zero will obviously not be enough (it definitely won’t be enough for the whole alphabet). It has been calculated to encode all the necessary letters, numbers, etc. - a sequence of 8 Bit.

For example, the English capital "A" code looks like this - 01000001 .

And so the code for the number "1" is 00110001.

These ones 8 Bits = 1 Byte(i.e. 1 Byte is the minimum data element).

About prefixes (and derivatives):

1 Kilobyte = 1024 Bytes (well, or 8 * 1024 Bits)
1 Megabyte = 1024 Kilobytes (or KB/KB)
1 Gigabyte = 1024 Megabytes (or MB/MB)
1 Terabyte = 1024 Gigabytes (or GB/GB)

Mathematics:

One megabit is equal to 0.125 megabytes.
To achieve a transfer rate of 1 megabytes per second, you will need a network connection with a speed of 8 megabits per second.

In practice, usually, they do not resort to such calculations, everything is made simpler. The declared speed of 15 Mbit / s is simply divided by 8 (and ~ 5-7% is subtracted from this number for the transfer of service information, network load, etc.). The resulting number will be considered normal speed (an approximate calculation is shown below).

15 Mbps / 8 = 1.875 Mbps

1.875 MB/s * 0.95 = 1.78 MB/s

In addition, I would not discount the load on the ISP network during peak hours: in the evenings or on weekends (when a large number of people use the network). This can also seriously affect access speed.

Thus, if you are connected to the Internet at the rate 15 Mbps, and your download speed in the torrent program shows about 2 MB/s- everything is very good with your channel and ISP 👌. Usually, the speed is less than declared (this is my next question, a couple of lines below).

👉 Typical question.

Why is the connection speed 50-100 Mbps, but the download speed is very low: 1-2 MB/s? Blame the ISP? After all, even according to approximate estimates, it should be at least 5-6 MB / s ...

I'll try to break it down point by point:

firstly, if you carefully look at the contract with the Internet provider, you will notice that you were promised access speed "UP TO 100 Mbps" ;
secondly, in addition to your access speed, it is very important that where are you downloading the file(s) from. Let's say if that computer (from which you are downloading a file) is connected via low-speed access, say 8 Mbps - then your download speed from it at 1 MB / s is, in fact, the maximum! Those. try to start downloading the file from other servers (torrent trackers);
thirdly, you may already have some kind of the program is downloading something else. Yes, the same Windows can download updates (if, in addition to a PC, you have a laptop, smartphone, etc. devices connected to the same network channel - see what they are doing ...). In general, check than ;
it is possible that in the evening hours (when the load on the Internet provider increases) - there are "drawdowns" (you are not the only one who decided to download something interesting at that time ✌);
If you are connected through a router - check it too. It often happens that inexpensive models cut speed (sometimes they just reboot), in general, they simply cannot cope with the load ...
check driver for your network card (for example, on the same wifi adapter). I have encountered the situation several times: after the network card (driver for network adapter 90% is set by Windows itself when it is installed), the speed of access increased significantly! The default drivers that come with Windows are not a panacea...

However, I do not rule out that your Internet provider (with old equipment, clearly overpriced tariffs that are only theoretically available on paper) may be the culprit for the low access speed. Just to start with, I wanted to pay attention to the above points ...

👉 Another typical question

Why then indicate the speed when connecting in Mbps, when all users are guided by MB / s (and in programs it is indicated in MB / s)?

There are two points:

when transferring information, not only the file itself is transmitted, but also other service information (some of which is less than a byte). Therefore, it is logical (and indeed, historically so) that the connection speed is measured and indicated in Mbps.
how more figure- the stronger the ads! Marketing has not been canceled either. Many people, they are quite far from network technologies, and seeing that somewhere the number is higher, they will go there and connect to the network.

My personal opinion: for example, it would be nice if providers indicated next to Mbit / s the real data download speed that the user will see in the same uTorrent. Thus, both the wolves are fed and the sheep are safe 👌.

👉To help!

By the way, to anyone who is dissatisfied with their speed of access to the Internet - I recommend.

Hello, dear readers of the site site!

You must have been interested baud rate over the network (including the Internet), write speed to a flash drive (or HDD). Today we will deal with the speed of information transfer in computer technology and find out how many megabytes in a megabit!

You will need information from the previous lesson, if you have not read it yet, then be sure to start with it.

Let me remind you that in the last IT lesson we dealt with bits, bytes and multiple prefixes K, M, G, T and found out how many bytes are in a kilobyte (here's lesson 15).

Remembered? Then let's start!

Baud Rate - Units

The minimum unit of measurement for data transfer rate is bits per second, (which is not surprising, because a bit is the smallest unit for measuring the amount of information).

Bits per second or bps(in English bits per second or bps) is the basic unit used to measure the speed of information transfer in computing.

Since not only bits, but also bytes are used to measure the amount of information, the speed can also be measured in bytes per second. Let me remind you that one byte contains eight bits (1 Byte = 8 bits).

Bytes per second or Byte/s(in English byte per second or Byte/s) is also a unit that measures the speed of information transfer (1 Byte / s = 8 bit / s).

* I ask you to immediately pay attention that when reducing bits are written in small letters b» ( bps), A bytes capitalized " B» (M b/s).

Copying prohibited

However, imagine that you have a high speed Internet connection, you are unlikely to say “I have 57.344 bits”. It's much easier to say "I have 56 kB", isn't it? Or, you can say "I have 8 kb", which is actually exactly 56 kb, or 57.344 bits.

Let's take a closer look at how many megabits are in a megabyte.

The smallest measure of speed or size is Bit, followed by Byte, etc. Where, there are 8 bits in 1 byte, that is, when you say 2 bytes, you are actually saying 16 bits. When you say 32 bits, you are actually saying 4 bytes. That is, such measures of measurement as bytes, kbits, kbytes, mbits, mbs, GBs, GBs, etc. were invented so that you would not have to pronounce or write long numbers.

Just imagine that these units of measurement would not exist, how would the same gigabyte be measured in this case? Since 1 gigabyte is equal to 8.589.934.592 bits, wouldn't it be more convenient to say 1 gigabyte than to write such long numbers.

We already know what 1 bit is and what 1 byte is. Let's go further.

There is also a unit of measurement "kbit" and "kbyte", as they are also called "kilobit" and "kilobyte".

Where, 1 kb is 1024 bits, and 1 kb is 1024 bytes.

1 kb = 8 kbps = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits

In addition, there are also “mbits” and “mbytes”, or as they are also called “megabits” and “megabytes”.

Where, 1 Mbps = 1024 Kbps, and 1 Mbps = 1024 Kbps.

From this comes that:

1 MB = 8 Mbps = 8192 kbps = 65536 kbps = 8388608 bytes = 67108864 bits

If you think about it, everything becomes simple.

Now you guess how many megabits are in a megabyte?

It will be hard the first time, but you will get used to it. Try to go the easy way:

1 megabyte = 1024 kbytes = 1048576 bytes = 8388608 bits = 8192 kbps = 1024 kbps = 8 Mbps
That is, 1 megabyte = 8 megabits.
Similarly, 1 kilobyte = 8 kilobits.
As in 1 byte = 8 bits.

Isn't it easy?

So, for example, you can find out the time for which you download one or another file. Let's say your Internet connection speed is 128 kilobytes per second, and the file you download on the Internet weighs 500 megabytes. How long do you think it will take to download the file?
Let's count.

To find out, you just need to understand how many kilobytes are in 500 megabytes. This is easy to do, just multiply the number of megabytes (500) by 1024, since there are 1024 kilobytes in 1 megabyte. We get the number 512000, this is the number of seconds for which the file will be downloaded, given the connection speed of 1 kilobyte per second. But, we have a speed of 128 kilobytes per second, so we divide the resulting number by 128. It remains 4000, this is the time in seconds for which the file will be downloaded.

Convert seconds to minutes:

4000 / 60 = ~66.50 minutes

Converting to hours:

~66.50 / 60 = ~1 hour 10 minutes

That is, our 500 megabyte file will be downloaded in 1 hour 10 minutes, given that the connection speed throughout the entire time will be exactly 128 kilobytes
per second, which equals 131.072 bytes, or to be more precise, 1.048.576 bits.

In today's article, we will deal with the measurement of information. All pictures, sounds and video clips that we see on monitor screens are nothing more than numbers. And these numbers can be measured, and, now, you will learn how to convert megabits to megabytes and megabytes to gigabytes.

If it is important for you to know how many mb in 1 GB or how many KB in 1 mb, then this article is for you. Most often, such data is needed by programmers who evaluate the volume occupied by their programs, but sometimes it does not interfere with ordinary users to estimate the size of downloaded or stored data.

In short, it is enough to know this:

1 byte = 8 bits

1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes

1 megabyte = 1024 kilobytes

1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes

1 terabyte = 1024 gigabytes

Common abbreviations: kilobyte=kb, megabyte=mb, gigabyte=gb.

Recently I received a question from my reader: "What is more kb or mb?". Hopefully now everyone knows the answer.

Information units in detail

In the information world, the decimal system of measurement, which is familiar to us, is not used, but binary. This means that one digit can take on a value not from 0 to 9, but from 0 to 1.

The simplest unit of information is 1 bit, it can be 0 or 1. But this value is very small for the modern amount of data, so bits are rarely used. Bytes are more commonly used, 1 byte is equal to 8 bits and can take a value from 0 to 15 (hexadecimal). True, instead of numbers 10-15, letters from A to F are used.

But even these volumes of data are small, therefore, the prefixes familiar to everyone are used: kilo- (thousand), mega- (million), giga- (billion).

It is worth noting that in the information world, a kilobyte is not equal to 1000 bytes, but 1024. And if you want to know how many kilobytes are in a megabyte, then you will also get the number 1024. When asked how many megabytes are in a gigabyte, you will hear the same answer - 1024.

This is also determined by the feature of the binary system of calculus. If, when using tens, we get each new digit by multiplying by 10 (1, 10, 100, 1000, etc.), then in binary system a new digit appears after multiplying by 2.

It looks like this:

2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024

A number consisting of 10 binary digits can have as few as 1024 values. This is more than 1000, but closest to the usual prefix kilo-. Mega- and giga and tera-are applied in a similar way.

Or TCP/IP.

For more high levels network models, as a rule, a larger unit is used - bytes per second(B/c or bps, from English. b ytes p er s econd ) equal to 8 bit/s.

Derived units

To denote higher transmission rates, larger units are used, formed using prefixes of the C system. kilo-, mega-, giga- etc. getting:

kilobits per second- kbps (kbps)
Megabits per second- Mbps (Mbps)
Gigabits per second- Gbit/s (Gbps)

Unfortunately, there is ambiguity regarding the interpretation of prefixes. There are two approaches:

kilobit is treated as 1000 bits (according to SI, as kilo grams or kilo meter), megabit as 1000 kilobit, etc.
kilobit is interpreted as 1024 bits, incl. 8 kbps = 1 KB/s (not 0.9765625).

To unambiguously designate a prefix that is a multiple of 1024 (and not 1000), the International Electrotechnical Commission coined the prefixes " kibi» (abbreviated Ki-, Ki-), « mebi» (abbreviated Mi-, Mi-) etc.

1 byte- 8 bits
1 kibibit- 1024 bits - 128 bytes
1 mebibit- 1048576 bits - 131072 bytes - 128 kb
1 Gibibit- 1073741824 bits - 134217728 bytes - 131072 kb - 128 MB

The telecommunications industry has adopted the SI system for the prefix kilo. That is, 128 kbps = 128000 bits.

Common mistakes

Beginners are often confused kilobits c kilobytes, expecting a speed of 256 KB/s from a 256 kbit/s channel (on such a channel, the speed will be 256,000 / 8 = 32,000 B/s = 32,000 / 1,000 = 32 KB/sec).
Often (wrongly or intentionally) bauds and bits/c are confused.
1 kbaud (as opposed to kbps) is always equal to 1000 baud.