Wee Jimmy Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 I’ve just had the technicians from 3BB at the house as my internet speed is slow but my question is this; When doing a speed check on my computer I get the answer in Mbps. When the guys who came to fix the internet tested the speed on their computer it showed the result in Megabytes. Why is mine showing Mbps? They couldn’t understand this and neither can I. Can someone explain this in layman’s terms please? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PoorSucker Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 ISP's almost always rate in mbps, which is mega BITs per second, as opposed to MB/s, which is mega BYTES per second. A bit is a single numeric value, either '1' or '0', that encodes a single unit of digital information. A byte is a sequence of bits; usually eight bits equal one byte. For example, in Internet Protocol (IP) networking, IP addresses contain 32 bits or 4 bytes. The bits encode the network address so that it can be shared on the network. The bytes divide the bits into groups. The IP address 192.168.0.1, for instance, is encoded with the following bits and bytes: 11000000 10101000 00000000 00000001 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innerspace Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Mbps = Mega Bit Per Second MB = Mega Byte 1 byte = 8 bits All of the speeds advertised for internet connections are in bits not bytes. So if you have an 8Mbps connection you should, at best, get 1 Mega Byte per second. However you will never quite get there maximum possible speed since there are overheads on the transport which use up some of the capacity. General users not understanding the difference with bits and bytes is very common, but technicians from an internet provider...that is worrying! Glad I don't use 3BB! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tywais Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Usually it will be in Mbps (Mega bits per second - note the lower case "b"). MBps would be Mega bytes per second, upper case "B". Some speedtest sites will display in kbps and do believe I've seen some that do MBps also so depends on which site is being used. Example from my Thailand university connection, two different test sites. The first is in Mbps (Mega bits per second) the 2nd in kbps (kilobits per second). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wee Jimmy Posted February 9, 2011 Author Share Posted February 9, 2011 Usually it will be in Mbps (Mega bits per second - note the lower case "b"). MBps would be Mega bytes per second, upper case "B". Some speedtest sites will display in kbps and do believe I've seen some that do MBps also so depends on which site is being used. Example from my Thailand university connection, two different test sites. The first is in Mbps (Mega bits per second) the 2nd in kbps (kilobits per second). Thanks guys. Here is what the internet speed is now; Is this good or average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tywais Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Thanks guys. Here is what the internet speed is now; Is this good or average. Obviously a "fudged" number by the ISP or cached data as has been mentioned in other topics. Not possible for 3BB to get those speeds at a standard home installation. Need to run tests to other speedtest sites to find one not currently in the ISP "let's make it look faster" list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrel Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Here is what the internet speed is now; 57 Megabits? (Falls out of chair laughing.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tywais Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 BTW, the theoretical maximum speed for ADSL is 12Mbps download and for ADSL2 is 24Mbps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pib Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 To the OP, were you and the technicians using the same speedtest program/website? I'm going to guess different progams/web sites were used; therefore, apples and oranges were being compared. Most speedtest programs/websites report their results in MegaBits (Mb), but a few do use MegaBytes (MB). Be sure to compare Apples to Apples and Oranges to Oranges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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