Is network/internet speed actually measured in megabits or mebibits?

So, as we all should hopefully already know, Windows erroneously lists drive capacity in gigabytes instead of gibibytes (the value it actually lists), causing much confusion with Microsoft customers who generally think they're getting shortchanged by drive manufacturers or formatting.

So, what about network and internet speeds?

I haven't bothered doing any testing (capacity per time) yet to find out for sure, but will if I don't get a definitive answer here.

Thanks!

Internet speed is measured in mega(bits). Not mega(bytes).

https://opensignal.com/knowledgebase...nd-megabit.php

One thing that often gives people confusion is the difference between a Megabyte (used for file size) and a Megabit (used for download speeds). People often assume that a download speed of 1 Megabit per second (1 Mbps) will allow them to download a 1 Megabyte file in one second. This is not the case, a Megabit is 1/8 as big as a Megabyte, meaning that to download a 1MB file in 1 second you would need a connection of 8Mbps. The difference between a Gigabyte (GB) and a Gigabit (Gb) is the same, with a Gigabyte being 8 times larger than a Gigabit.

Layback Bear said:

Internet speed is measured in mega(bits). Not mega(bytes).

https://opensignal.com/knowledgebase...nd-megabit.php

One thing that often gives people confusion is the difference between a Megabyte (used for file size) and a Megabit (used for download speeds). People often assume that a download speed of 1 Megabit per second (1 Mbps) will allow them to download a 1 Megabyte file in one second. This is not the case, a Megabit is 1/8 as big as a Megabyte, meaning that to download a 1MB file in 1 second you would need a connection of 8Mbps. The difference between a Gigabyte (GB) and a Gigabit (Gb) is the same, with a Gigabyte being 8 times larger than a Gigabit.

Hi, LBB! :)

Yes, as per the thread title, I am aware of the difference between bytes and bits. Bytes here was used in reference to drive capacity, not network/internet speeds. Sorry if I didn't clarify what I'm specifically asking here.

Thanks none the less though, of course.

Alejandro85 said:

It seems that the decimal units (kilobit/second, megabits/second, gigabits/second, etc) are more frequently used than the binary counterparts. While in storage devices there is that confusion on what the multiples actually mean, I never seen such a thing on data rates, always settled on the decimal sets of units.

The only reference I could find, and not of definitive value, is on Wikipedia:

All quoted figures are in metric decimal units. Note that these aren't the traditional binary prefixes for memory size. These decimal prefixes have long been established in data communications. This occurred before 1998 when IEC and other organizations introduced new binary prefixes and attempted to standardize their use across all computing applications.

I think an actual measure is in order

I would be surprised if the megabits listed in network/internet speeds weren't the real version, but I'm not actually sure... Yes, I'll likely test it out and report back, just to be on the safe side.

Cheers.