A Bit and Byte?

A bit is defined as: a single basic unit of information, used in connection with computers and electronic communication. All modern computers store and use data in digital form. The smallest unit of storage and measurement is one binary digit, therefore its name.

A byte, pronounced ‘bite’, is the next size up basic unit of measurement for information storage, usually consisting of eight bits. These 8 bits are grouped together to form a byte that is, a total or 8 grouped bits representing one character of data.

Therefore, so far we have two basic units of measuring digital information storage that have different capacities, they are:

• 1 Bit
• 8 Bits equal 1 Byte

Kilobytes, Megabytes and Gigabytes

These basic units of measurement are the basis for representing the ever increasing multiples of storage capacity. Different terms are used to define these increased multiples. The terms for large quantities of bytes can be formed by using prefixes such as:

• Kilo (Kilobytes) (1,024 Bytes)
• Mega (Megabytes) (1,048,576 Bytes)
• Giga (Gigabytes) (1,073,741,824 Bytes).

Although these prefixes used for measurements of storage are expressed in base 10 (Kilobytes can be shown as 1000 bytes) the actual amount of bytes for each Kilobyte is 1,024. This is base 2, or (2^10 = 1024).

Besides the storage capacity of disks, drives and computer files, large amounts of computer memory is also indicated and measured in terms of Kilobytes, Megabytes and Gigabytes.

1,024 Byte equal 1 Kilobyte – (KB)
1,024 Kilobyte (KB) equal 1 Megabyte – (MB)
1,024 Megabyte (MB) equal 1 Gigabyte – (GB)

Speed and transferring of data (downloading & uploading)

Once we begin talking about the speed of transferring computer data that is, downloading information and measuring the speed it is able to transfer this data, the unit of measure used is known as ‘bits per second’ (bps). Usually measured in thousands of bits per second, known as kilobits per second (kbps).

To measure the faster speeds of data transfer, similar to measuring higher capacity of storage, the same prefixes are used, these are as follows:

• Kilobits per second (Kbps) = 1,024 bits per second
• Megabit per second (Mbps) = 1,048,576 bits per second
• Gigabit per second (Gbps) = 1,073,741,824 bits per second

Digital telecommunications or computer network transfer rates, as previously mentioned, are described in terms of bits per second. The overall amount of data that can be transferred and the transfer rate of a modem at any one time, is referred to as bandwidth (speed).

Broadband is a term used to describe connections greater than 256Kbps.

Connection and download speeds

The connection speed is the speed your broadband (ADSL modem/router) service is connecting and is measured as Kbps, whereas in general; the download speed is the speed you can download files measured as KB (kilobytes).

The relationship between the connection and download speeds is that the higher the connection speed you have, the faster your download speed.

What this speed means to people

To be able to have this speed to download digital information is a must for people in today’s electronic information based society. In a practical sense it means the increase in speed makes surfing the Internet, downloading documents, images, photographs, music and videos faster. Besides being less time consuming it is less frustrating, no more waiting around for hours or days for downloading to be complete.

The following are examples of the time (download speed) taken to download popular electronic media using Broadband vs Dial up: