Mbps to Kbps
1 megabit per second equals 1,000 kilobits per second exactly.
How to convert megabits per second to kilobits per second
To convert megabits per second to kilobits per second, multiply the number of megabits per second by 1,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply kilobits per second by 0.001.
kilobits per second = megabits per second × 1,000
Example: 10 megabits per second = 10,000 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
Megabit Per Second (Mbps)
1,000,000 bits per second. The unit of internet connection speeds; 8 Mbps is 1 MB/s.
Megabits entered everyday life through Ethernet. The original 10BASE5 version arrived in 1981 at 10 Mbit/s, Fast Ethernet raised the figure to 100 Mbit/s in 1995, and wireless followed, with 802.11b offering 11 Mbit/s in 1999. Telecommunications engineers had always meant exactly one million bits per second by the megabit, while computer memory vendors were stretching the word mega toward powers of two. That divergence is part of why the IEC later published separate binary prefixes.
Internet providers still sell service in Mbit/s, which is why a plan and a download counter seem to disagree. A byte is eight bits, so 100 Mbit/s is at most 12.5 MB/s, and a 1 GB file needs about 80 seconds at that rate under ideal conditions. Streaming is far lighter: YouTube video at 1080p is listed at roughly 3 to 8 Mbit/s with H.264, and 2160p at 8 to 35 Mbit/s. Real throughput is lower than the line rate because of protocol overhead.
1 megabit per second = 1,000,000 bits per second (exactly).
Sources: Wikipedia: Bit rate (Ethernet, Wi-Fi and streaming rates); NIST: Prefixes for binary multiples; Wikipedia: Megabit
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 Mbps (reverse)
- Mbps to bps
- Mbps to Gbps
- Mbps to MB/s
- Mbps to Tbps
- Mbps to B/s
- Mbps to KB/s
- Mbps to GB/s
- Mbps to MiB/s
- Mbps to Kibit/s
- Mbps to Mibit/s
- Mbps to Gibit/s
- Mbps to KiB/s
- Bps to Kbps
- Gbps to Kbps
- MB/s to Kbps
- Tbps to Kbps
- B/s 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.