Kibit/s to Bps (Kibit/s to bit/s)

1 kibibit per second equals 1,024 bits per second exactly.

1 kibibit per second = 1,024 bits per second

How to convert kibibits per second to bits per second

To convert kibibits per second to bits per second, multiply the number of kibibits per second by 1,024. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply bits per second by 0.0009765625.

bits per second = kibibits per second × 1,024

Example: 10 kibibits per second = 10,240 bits 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

Kibibit Per Second (Kibit/s)

ComputingCurrent unit

1,024 bits per second.

Kibibit per second is the smallest of the binary data-rate units on the site, and its name shows how it was built. The prefix kibi keeps the first two letters of kilo and adds bi for binary. It stands for 2 to the power 10, which is 1,024. The International Electrotechnical Commission approved the prefix in December 1998 and published it in January 1999 as an amendment to IEC 60027-2.

One kibibit per second is exactly 1,024 bits per second, or 128 bytes per second at 8 bits to the byte. A kilobit per second in the decimal sense is 1,000 bits per second, so the binary unit is 2.4 percent larger. Network speeds are almost always quoted with decimal prefixes, so this unit turns up mostly where a rate is derived from binary-sized buffers or memory blocks.

1 kibibit per second = 1,024 bits per second (exactly).

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

Bit Per Second (bit/s)

ComputingCurrent unit

The basic unit of data rate: one bit transferred each second.

Before there was a bit per second, there had to be a bit. The word is a contraction of binary digit, and John W. Tukey is credited with shortening it in a Bell Labs memo dated 9 January 1947. Claude Shannon then used it in print in his 1948 paper on the mathematical theory of communication, where he credited Tukey. Counting such bits against the clock gave engineers a way to compare telegraph lines, telephone circuits and computer links with one yardstick.

Today the bit per second is the base unit for data rates, written bit/s and often shortened to bps. It is not the same thing as the baud, which counts signalling events per second. The two agree only when each signal carries exactly one bit. Ten-megabit Ethernet over twisted pair, for instance, runs at 10 Mbit/s but sends about 20 million pulses per second because of its line coding. For scale, one cited figure puts the bare minimum for recognizable speech at around 800 bit/s, far below the 64 kbit/s of an ordinary digital phone line.

The bit per second is the reference unit for data transfer rate on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Bit (origin of the term); Wikipedia: Bit rate; Wikipedia: Baud

Related conversions

See all data transfer rate units.