What Does MBit / S Mean? And How Fast Is That? - Easily Explained

2023 Author: Sheila Hailey | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:17

The abbreviation " Mbit / s " stands for " M ega bits per S Ekunde" and indicates the speed of a technology or a device to. It is about how much data can be transferred per second (under ideal conditions).

Here you will find MBit information everywhere:

• Internet connection / Internet provider - "up to 16,000 Mbit / s"
• Router - "up to 1,733 Mbit / s"
• Mobile Internet at mobile phone tariffs - "up to 225 Mbit / s"

How fast are “MBit / s” now?

The "MBit / s" unit is not always particularly suitable for getting a feeling or comparison for how fast that is actually. However, many know that around 700 MB (megabytes) fit on an audio CD. So you can simply convert the unit "MBit / s" (Mega- Bit per second) into "MB / s" (Mega- Byte per second) in order to better interpret the speed.

The same calculation can also be done with a DVD capacity. Here you would expect 4.7 GB - that is, 4,700 MB, because 1 GB corresponds to 1000 MB.

Example: Conversion from MBit / s to MB / s

Here we see an offer of a Fritzbox, which is fast on the 5 GHz frequency up to 1,733 Mbit / s, on the 2.4 GHz frequency up to 800 Mbit / s and through VDSL vectoring up to 300 Mbit / s.

Since a byte is exactly 8 bits, you simply divide the MBit by 8 to get the MB:

Mbit / s	1,733	800	300
MB / s	217	100	37.5

If the Fritzbox transmits data at 1,733 MBit / s, this corresponds to (rounded) 217 MB / s. It would then take a little more than 3 seconds for 700 MB to be transferred, which corresponds to a standard audio CD.

Calculation: 700 MB ÷ 217 MB / s = 3.2 seconds (rounded)

A transfer rate of 800 Mbit / s corresponds to 100 MB / s. Here it would take 7 seconds for the data volume of an audio CD to be transferred. 300 Mbit / s corresponds to 37.5 MB / s. Here it would take around 19 seconds for the 700 MB to be transferred.

Incidentally, we mention here that the speeds for routers are theoretical MAXIMUM information or marketing information and cannot be achieved in practice.

In the 3-minute video, we explain how to classify MBit into other file sizes such as kilobytes and gibibytes:

What are kilobytes, megabits and gibibytes? File sizes & speeds - TECHfacts # 2

Basically, 1 bit is the smallest digital unit of size. 8 bits result in 1 byte. And 1024 bytes equals 1 KB (kilo-byte). 1024 KB equals 1 MB (mega byte). 1024 MB equals 1 GB (gigabyte). Often, for simpler calculations or for marketing purposes, instead of the factor 1024, only 1000 is used.