What home Internet speed do you really need? What internet speed is enough? Baud Rate - Units

However, imagine that you have high speed Internet connection, you are unlikely to say “I have 57.344 bits.” It's much easier to say "I have 56 kbytes", isn't it? Or, you can say “I have 8 kbits,” which is actually exactly 56 kbytes, or 57.344 bits.

Let's take a closer look at how many megabits are in a megabyte.

The smallest measurement of speed or size is Bit, followed by Byte, etc. Where, in 1 byte there are 8 bits, that is, when you say 2 bytes, you are actually saying 16 bits. When you say 32 bits, you are actually saying 4 bytes. That is, such measures as bytes, kbits, kbytes, mbits, mbytes, gbits, gigabytes, etc. were invented so that there would be no need to pronounce or write long numbers.

Just imagine that these units of measurement did not exist, how would the same gigabyte be measured in this case? Since 1 gigabyte is equal to 8,589,934,592 bits, isn’t it more convenient to say 1 GB than to write such long numbers.

We already know what 1 bit is and what 1 byte is. Let's go further.

There is also a unit of measurement “kbit” and “kbyte”, as they are also called “kilobit” and “kilobyte”.

Where, 1 kbit is 1024 bits, and 1 kbyte is 1024 bytes.

1 kbyte = 8 kbits = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits

In addition, there are also “mbits” and “megabytes”, or as they are also called “megabits” and “megabytes”.

Where, 1 Mbit = 1024 kBits, and 1 MB = 1024 Kbytes.

It follows from this that:

1 MB = 8 MB = 8192 KB = 65536 KB = 8388608 bytes = 67108864 bits

If you think about it, everything becomes simple.

Now can you guess how many megabits are in a megabyte?

It will be difficult the first time, but you will get used to it. Try to take the easy way:

1 megabyte = 1024 kbytes = 1048576 bytes = 8388608 bits = 8192 kbits = 1024 kbytes = 8 Mbits
That is, 1 megabyte = 8 megabits.
Likewise, 1 kilobyte = 8 kilobits.
As in 1 byte = 8 bits.

Isn't it easy?

So, for example, you can find out the time it takes for you to download this or that file. Let's say the speed of your Internet connection is 128 kilobytes per second, and the file you download on the Internet weighs 500 megabytes. How long do you think it will take to download the file?
Let's do the math.

To find out, you just need to understand how many kilobytes are in 500 megabytes. This is easy to do, just multiply the number of megabytes (500) by 1024, since there are 1024 kilobytes in 1 megabyte. We get the number 512000, this is the number of seconds in which the file will be downloaded, taking into account the connection speed of 1 kilobyte per second. But, our speed is 128 kilobytes per second, so we divide the resulting number by 128. That leaves 4000, this is the time in seconds for which the file will be downloaded.

Converting seconds to minutes:

4000 / 60 = ~66.50 minutes

Convert to hours:

~66.50 / 60 = ~1 hour 10 minutes

That is, our file of 500 megabytes in size will be downloaded in 1 hour 10 minutes, taking into account that the connection speed throughout the entire time will be exactly 128 kilobytes
per second, which equals 131,072 bytes, or, to be more precise, 1,048,576 bits.

Or TCP/IP.

At higher levels of network models, a larger unit is typically used - bytes per second(B/c or Bps, from English b ytes p er s second ) equal to 8 bit/s.

Derived units

To denote higher transmission speeds, larger units are used, formed using the prefixes of the C system kilo-, mega-, giga- etc. getting:

Kilobits per second- kbit/s (kbps)
Megabits per second- Mbit/s (Mbps)
Gigabits per second- Gbit/s (Gbps)

Unfortunately, there is ambiguity regarding the interpretation of prefixes. There are two approaches:

kilobit is treated as 1000 bits (according to SI, as kilo gram or kilo meter), megabit as 1000 kilobits, etc.
A kilobit is interpreted as 1024 bits, incl. 8 kbps = 1 KB/s (not 0.9765625).

To unambiguously designate a prefix divisible by 1024 (and not 1000), the International Electrotechnical Commission came up with the prefixes “ kibi"(abbreviated Ki-, Ki-), « furniture"(abbreviated Mi-, Mi-) etc.

1 byte- 8 bits
1 kibibit- 1024 bits - 128 bytes
1 mebibit- 1048576 bits - 131072 bytes - 128 kbytes
1 Gibibit- 1073741824 bits - 134217728 bytes - 131072 kbytes - 128 MB

The telecommunications industry has adopted the SI system for the prefix kilo. That is, 128 Kbit = 128000 bits.

Common mistakes

Beginners often get confused kilobits c kilobytes, expecting a speed of 256 KB/s from a 256 kbit/s channel (on such a channel the speed will be 256,000 / 8 = 32,000 B/s = 32,000 / 1,000 = 32 KB/sec).
Bauds and bits/c are often (wrongly or intentionally) confused.
1 kbaud (as opposed to kbit/s) is always equal to 1000 baud.

Units of measurement information in detail

In the information world, it is not the usual decimal measurement system that is used, but a binary one. This means that one digit can take values not from 0 to 9, but from 0 to 1.

The simplest unit of measurement of information is 1 bit; it can be equal to 0 or 1. But this value is very small for the modern amount of data, so bits are rarely used. Bytes are most often used; 1 byte is equal to 8 bits and can take a value from 0 to 15 (hexadecimal number system). True, instead of numbers 10-15, letters from A to F are used.

But these volumes of data are small, so the familiar prefixes kilo- (thousand), mega-(million), giga-(billion) are used.

It is worth noting that in the information world, a kilobyte is not equal to 1000 bytes, but 1024. And if you want to know how many kilobytes are in a megabyte, then you will also get the number 1024. When asked how many megabytes are in a gigabyte, you will hear the same answer - 1024.

This is also determined by the feature binary system calculus. If, when using tens, we obtain each new digit by multiplying by 10 (1, 10, 100, 1000, etc.), then in the binary system a new digit appears after multiplying by 2.

It looks like this:

2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024

A number consisting of 10 binary digits can only have 1024 values. This is more than 1000, but is closest to the usual prefix kilo-. Mega-, giga- and tera- are used in the same way.

Russia has very good and, no less important, affordable home Internet. Seriously! In villages and very deep provinces, things are, of course, worse, but take any city, even a small one, in the European part of the country and look at the tariffs. For 300–400 rubles a month you can bring Internet to your apartment at a speed of around 25–50 megabits per second, and with some promotion even 100 megabits.

For comparison: in “civilized” countries fast internet(both home and mobile) costs an order of magnitude more. And the concept of “monthly data limit” still lives there. We only have this left with mobile operators.

However, being cheap is not a reason to pay for something you don’t use. Even a hundred rubles saved warms your wallet, and therefore the tariff for your home Internet must be chosen based on your real speed needs. Let's figure out how many megabits per second are required in different situations, and start with the basic concepts.

Megabits, megabytes and real speeds

Data size is usually measured in bytes. For example, an HD movie weighs from 700 megabytes (megabytes) to 1.4 gigabytes (gigabytes), while a Full HD movie weighs from 4 to 14 gigabytes.

Data transfer rates are usually specified in bits (not bytes!) per second, and sometimes this causes misunderstanding.

Byte ≠ bit.

1 byte = 8 bits.

1 megabyte = 8 megabits.

1 megabyte per second = 8 megabits per second.

If the user does not distinguish between bytes and bits, he can easily confuse them or mistake them for the same thing. In this case, it will calculate the approximate time for downloading an HD movie via torrent something like this:

The film weighs 1,400 "megs".
Internet speed is 30 “megas” per second.
The movie will download in 1,400 / 30 = 46.6 seconds.

In fact, the Internet speed is 30 megabits per second = 3.75 megabytes per second. Accordingly, 1,400 megabytes must be divided not by 30, but by 3.75. In this case, the download time will be 1,400 / 3.75 = 373 seconds.

In practice, the speed will be even lower, because Internet providers indicate the speed “up to”, that is, the maximum possible, and not the working speed. In addition, interference, especially over Wi-Fi transmissions, network congestion, and limitations and characteristics of user equipment and service provider equipment also contribute. You can check your speed using, and increase it using.

Often the bottleneck becomes the resource from which you download something. For example, your Internet speed is 100 megabits per second, and the site sends data at a speed of 10 megabits per second. In this case, the download will occur at a speed of no more than 10 megabits per second, and nothing can be done about it.

What internet speed do you really need?

Obviously, the above table requires clarification.

Questions and answers

What to do if the Internet is used on two or more devices at once?

Let’s say you are watching Full HD streaming video on a smart TV, your wife is surfing YouTube on a laptop with an HD screen, and your child is watching something from a smartphone or tablet, also in HD quality. Does this mean that the numbers from the table need to be summed up?

Yes, that's absolutely right. In this case, you will need about 20 megabits per second.

Why do different sites have different speed requirements for watching videos of the same resolution?

There is such a thing as bitrate - the amount of information with which an image is encoded per unit of time, and, accordingly, a conditional indicator of the quality of picture and sound. The higher the bitrate, the better the image, as a rule. This is why on torrents you can find versions of the same movie with the same resolution, but different sizes.

Additionally, there are super-smooth 60fps videos. They weigh more and require faster internet.

Is it true that online games are so undemanding of Internet speed?

Yes, for most games like CS, Dota 2, WoT, WoW and even GTA 5, just one megabit per second is more than enough for multiplayer, but in this case, ping becomes decisive - the time it takes for the signal to travel from you to game server and back. The lower the ping, the lower the latency in the game.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to know in advance even the approximate ping in a specific game through a specific provider, since its value is not constant and depends on many factors.

Why during video calls does the picture and sound from my interlocutors go normally to me, but not from me to them?

In this case, not only incoming, but also outgoing Internet speed becomes important. Often, providers do not indicate the outgoing speed in the tariff at all, but you can check it yourself using the same Speedtest.net.

To broadcast via a webcam, an outgoing speed of 1 megabit per second is sufficient. In the case of HD cameras (and especially Full HD), the requirements for outgoing speed increase.

Why do Internet service providers start at 20–30 or more megabits per second in speed tariffs?

Because the higher the speed, the more money they can charge you. Providers could keep the tariffs “from the past” with a speed of 2–10 megabits per second and reduce their cost to 50–100 rubles, but why? It is much more profitable to increase the minimum speeds and prices.