Kbps to KiB/s
1 kilobit per second equals 0.1220703125 kibibytes per second exactly.
How to convert kilobits per second to kibibytes per second
To convert kilobits per second to kibibytes per second, multiply the number of kilobits per second by 0.1220703125. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kibibytes per second by 8.192.
kibibytes per second = kilobits per second × 0.1220703125
Example: 10 kilobits per second = 1.220703125 kibibytes 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)
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
Kibibyte Per Second (KiB/s)
1,024 bytes per second.
File-transfer dialogs and download managers often show a speed in kilobytes per second, and the kibibyte per second is the unambiguous form of that reading. A kibibyte is 1,024 bytes. The kilobyte had long been used for that number, especially for memory, because 1,024 is close to 1,000. In 1998 the IEC introduced kibibyte, KiB, and said that kilobyte should mean 1,000 bytes only.
Real software has been slow to follow. Windows divides sizes by 1,024, so a file of 65,536 bytes appears as 64 KB, while recent versions of macOS show the same file as 66 kB. For a rate, one kibibyte per second is 1,024 bytes per second, which is 8,192 bits per second and about 1.024 decimal kilobytes per second. It is eight times the kibibit per second, since a byte holds eight bits.
1 kibibyte per second = 8,192 bits per second (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Kilobyte; Wikipedia: Data-rate units; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples
Related conversions
- KiB/s to Kbps (reverse)
- Kbps to bps
- Kbps to Mbps
- Kbps to Gbps
- Kbps to MB/s
- Kbps to Tbps
- Kbps to B/s
- Kbps to KB/s
- Kbps to GB/s
- Kbps to MiB/s
- Kbps to Kibit/s
- Kbps to Mibit/s
- Kbps to Gibit/s
- Bps to KiB/s
- Mbps to KiB/s
- Gbps to KiB/s
- MB/s to KiB/s
See all data transfer rate units.