Kbps to MB/s
1 kilobit per second equals 0.000125 megabytes per second exactly.
How to convert kilobits per second to megabytes per second
To convert kilobits per second to megabytes per second, multiply the number of kilobits per second by 0.000125. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply megabytes per second by 8,000.
megabytes per second = kilobits per second × 0.000125
Example: 10 kilobits per second = 0.00125 megabytes 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
Megabyte Per Second (MB/s)
1,000,000 bytes per second (8 Mbps). Disk and download speeds are shown in MB/s.
Megabytes per second inherit all the confusion of the megabyte itself. The word has meant 1,000,000 bytes in networking, hard drives and DVDs, 1,048,576 bytes for memory under Microsoft Windows, and 1,024,000 bytes for the 3.5-inch floppy disk marketed as 1.44 MB, which actually held 1,474,560 bytes. In 1999 the IEC defined megabyte as 10⁶ bytes and mebibyte as 2²⁰ bytes, and by the end of 2009 the IEEE, EU, ISO and NIST had adopted that standard.
As a rate, 1 MB/s is 1,000,000 bytes per second, or 8 Mbit/s. File copies, game installers and disk benchmarks usually show MB/s, while internet plans use Mbit/s, so a 100 Mbit/s plan tops out near 12.5 MB/s. As a feel for size, about one minute of 128 kbit/s MP3 audio fits in roughly 1 MB, so a link carrying 1 MB/s moves about a minute of such audio every second.
1 megabyte per second = 8,000,000 bits per second (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Megabyte; NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples; Wikipedia: Data-rate units
Related conversions
- MB/s to Kbps (reverse)
- Kbps to bps
- Kbps to Mbps
- Kbps to Gbps
- 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
- Kbps to KiB/s
- Bps to MB/s
- Mbps to MB/s
- Gbps to MB/s
- Tbps to MB/s
- B/s to MB/s
- KB/s to MB/s
- GB/s to MB/s
- MiB/s to MB/s
- Kibit/s to MB/s
- Mibit/s to MB/s
- Gibit/s to MB/s
- KiB/s to MB/s
See all data transfer rate units.