B/s to Kbps
1 byte per second equals 0.008 kilobits per second exactly.
How to convert bytes per second to kilobits per second
To convert bytes per second to kilobits per second, multiply the number of bytes per second by 0.008. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilobits per second by 125.
kilobits per second = bytes per second × 0.008
Example: 10 bytes per second = 0.08 kilobits per second.
Network speeds are quoted in bits per second (lowercase b), while file sizes use bytes (uppercase B). Divide Mbps by 8 for MB/s.
About these units
Byte Per Second (B/s)
Eight bits per second.
Byte is a younger word than bit. Werner Buchholz coined it in June 1956 during the early design of the IBM Stretch computer, deliberately spelling it with a y so that nobody would mistake it for bit. At first it had no fixed size, and Stretch's early design allowed groups of one to six bits. Eight-bit bytes were then built into Stretch, and IBM's System/360 spread them widely in the 1960s. Another person, Louis Dooley, has also claimed to have coined the term at MIT Lincoln Laboratory around 1956 or 1957.
A byte per second is eight bits per second, the smallest rate counted in bytes. Protocol documents that need to avoid any ambiguity often use the word octet for exactly eight bits. The unit is tiny by modern standards. On serial links, start, stop and parity bits mean the line must run at a higher bit rate than the byte rate alone suggests.
1 byte per second = 8 bits per second (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Byte; Wikipedia: Bit rate; Wikipedia: Data-rate units
Kilobit Per Second (kbps)
1,000 bits per second. Used for voice calls and low-rate links.
Kilobit rates belong to the age of telephone wires. In 1962 AT&T introduced the Bell 103A, a full-duplex modem that sent 300 bit/s over ordinary phone lines, and by 1976 the Bell 212A had reached 1,200 bit/s. Speeds then climbed in steps through the 1990s, until the V.90 standard approved in 1998 offered 56 kbit/s downstream, with 33.6 kbit/s going the other way. That ceiling defined the dial-up era for many home users.
A kilobit per second is 1,000 bit/s, using the standard SI meaning of kilo, and it is still the natural unit for anything lightweight. A digital voice channel using PCM takes 64 kbit/s. MP3 files are often encoded at 128 kbit/s as a mid-range setting, with 320 kbit/s the highest the format supports. Divide by eight to get bytes: 8 kbit/s is 1 kB/s, so a 56 kbit/s modem moves about 7 kB/s, and fetching a 1 MB file over it would take roughly two and a half minutes.
1 kilobit per second = 1,000 bits per second (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Modem (Bell 103, 212A, V.90 history); Wikipedia: Bit rate (voice and MP3 rates); Wikipedia: Kilobit
Related conversions
- Kbps to B/s (reverse)
- B/s to bps
- B/s to Mbps
- B/s to Gbps
- B/s to MB/s
- B/s to Tbps
- B/s to KB/s
- B/s to GB/s
- B/s to MiB/s
- Bps to Kbps
- Mbps to Kbps
- Gbps to Kbps
- MB/s to Kbps
- Tbps to Kbps
- KB/s to Kbps
- GB/s to Kbps
- MiB/s to Kbps
- Kibit/s to Kbps
- Mibit/s to Kbps
- Gibit/s to Kbps
- KiB/s to Kbps
See all data transfer rate units.