These are measures of how fast your internet connection is. k/bit stands for kilo bits per second and m/bit stands for mega biths per second. We switch between Kilobit and Megabit as we do with weight using grams and kilograms. Mega is a multiple of Kilo - there are approx 1,000 kilobits in a megabit.
So if your broadband speed is 80m/bit that means it can transfer 80 million bits of information a second.
NB: A lot of broadband connections have different speeds in either direction. When you are receiving (Downloading) the data it will be at one speed and when you are sending (Uploading) it it will be at another. This is why broadband speeds are listed as 80/20, 20/10 10/1.5, etc. The first number is the download (Receiving) speed and the second number is the upload (Sending) speed. We typically download more than we upload so this is a good used of the internet connection.
So what are bits? And bytes?
A bit is the smallest size of information a computer can hold. It is either a 1 or a 0 and so is Binary in nature. That's where the name comes from - Binary Digit or Bit. This is how computers store and transmit data, in Bits.
A one or a zero doesn't mean much in itself so we combine them into bunches of data called Bytes. A Byte is made up of 8 bits and by tying them together in bunches we can represent the numbers 0 to 255. This is much more useful and is the building block of Computing and the Internet - everything in there is stored in Bytes of data. Again, we use multipliers to represent different sizes:
- Byte, a single Byte of data
- Kilobyte, 1,000 bytes of data
- Megabyte, 1,000,000 bytes of data
- Gigabyte, 1,000,000,000 bytes of data
- Terabyte, 1,000,000,000,000 bytes of data
So if I wanted to download a 10 Megabyte (Also shown as 10Mb) file on a 40m/bit connection, how long would it take?
- A 10Mb file is made up of 10 million bytes of information (10 Megabytes x 1,000,000 Bytes = 10,000,000 Bytes)
- 10 million bytes is 80 million bits of information (10,000,000 Bytes x 8 bits = 80,000,000 bits)
- A 40m/bit connection can download 40,000,000 bits of information per second
- 80,000,000 divided by 40,000,000 = 2
- It will take 2 seconds to download a 10Mb file on a 40m/bit connection.
PS: We actually use multiples of 1,024 not 1,000 in the above calulations, so techically a 10Mb file will contain 1,024 x 1,000,000 = 1,024,000 bits.