Kbps to GiB/s

1 kilobit per second equals 1.164153218×10⁻⁷ gibibytes per second (rounded).

1 kilobit per second = 1.164153218×10⁻⁷ gibibytes per second

How to convert kilobits per second to gibibytes per second

To convert kilobits per second to gibibytes per second, multiply the number of kilobits per second by 1.164153218×10⁻⁷. The factor is rounded to 10 significant digits. To go the other way, multiply gibibytes per second by 8,589,934.592.

gibibytes per second = kilobits per second × 1.164153218×10⁻⁷

Example: 10 kilobits per second = 0.000001164153218 gibibytes 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

Kilobit Per Second (kbps)

ComputingCurrent unit

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

Gibibyte Per Second (GiB/s)

ComputingCurrent unit

1,073,741,824 bytes per second.

Gibibytes per second belong to the top of the speed range, where memory and fast storage move data in bulk. One gibibyte per second is 1,073,741,824 bytes per second. Multiplying by 8 gives 8,589,934,592 bits per second, so it is about 8.59 decimal gigabits per second and roughly 7.4 percent more than a decimal gigabyte per second.

The gi in the name stands for gigabinary, one of the contractions proposed in 1995 by an IUPAC committee. The IEC approved the finished prefixes in December 1998 as a way to separate binary multiples from SI ones. Later editions added further prefixes, and ISO/IEC 80000-13 now carries the binary prefix definitions. A gibibyte rate is easy to confuse with a gigabit rate, because the two differ by a factor of about 8.6, so conversions between them need care.

1 gibibyte per second = 8,589,934,592 bits per second (exactly).

Sources: NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples; Wikipedia: Binary prefix; Wikipedia: Data-rate units

Related conversions

See all data transfer rate units.