Megabit

Megabit

Megabit: a unit of data measurement equal to 1,000,000 bits.

Mega is the SI standard prefix for one million, or 〖10〗^6. While it follows the SI metric pattern in terms of being 1000 times the size of the previous term, it is not interchangeable with Megabyte, because it is one- eighth the size of the MB.

Therefore it is an uneven conversion, and the switching of the two will cause considerable issues in terms of actual capacity.

While the internet once ran at speeds in the kbps range (and in some cases under certain circumstances still do) it is far more common and one could even say standard, to see speeds in the Mbps range (megabits per second).

This is because of the rise of high- speed broadband internet, which was able to handle download and upload speeds much higher than previous technology.


Most modern ISP’s provide internet in the 40- 60 mbps range, with options for much higher rates (some even up to 100 or higher).

Some countries, Sweden, for example, provide 100/100 internet service, which provides equal upload and download speeds up to 100 Mbps.

Note that While megabits are used to measure dtr (data transfer rates), megabytes are used to measure file size.

Therefore, if you download a 100 MB file at 40 Mbps, it will take 20 seconds (40Mbps/8= 5MBps… 100MB/5MBps= 20 seconds).

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