Kpbs

Kpbs

Kpbs: A data transfer rate equal to 1000 bits per second.

The prefix kilo makes this unit of measurement 1000 times the basic bit (think metric- kilogram is 1000 grams, kilometre is 1000 meters).

Therefore kilobits is a rate equal to one thousand bits per second. Kilobits per second is a very important piece of computer programming history. For example, the 56K modem.

It is important to remember the distinction in prefixes. When talking about computer references, kilo is represent by a lowercase “k,” whereas the closely related Kibibyte is represented by an uppercase “Ki,” which is often shorthanded to simply “K.”

Confusing these two will provide vast differences, as Kibi is a binary measurement of data, often used for storage capacity, instead of the kilobit used for data transfer rates.

This means it will be the wrong measurement for the wrong purpose, and can have large consequences if it goes unnoticed.

The lowercase “b” is Gbps indicates it stands for “Gigabits” rather than “Gigabytes.” Since one byte equals eight bits, 1GBps is equal to 8Gbps.

While storage capacity is typically measured in bytes, data transfer speeds are typically measured in bits. Therefore, Gbps is much more commonly used than GBps.

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