By Philip C.
The internet is a great thing. What’s even greater is when you have a very fast connection, and everything loads almost instantly. The faster the internet speed, the faster your downloads will be. However, your internet speed might not be as fast as what you think it is.
Megabit vs Megabyte
Not many people know the difference between these 2 terms. A megabyte(MB) is a measure for digital information, or data. A megabit(mb) is a measure of data transfer speeds. The big difference is the capital letters, MB and mb. Same goes for a gigabyte(GB), which is a thousand megabytes, and gigabit(gb), a thousand megabits.
So when your ISP(Internet Service Provider, here in Singapore its either Singtel or Starhub etc) states that you can get up to 1Gbps, it means 1 gigaBIT per second, and not 1 gigaBYTE per second.
So what is the difference between a Megabit and a Megabyte?
As mentioned earlier, a megabyte is a measure for data. A photo in your handphone is usually about 1-3 MB (megabytes). A video is usually larger, usually ranging up to 10-20 MB. A song is about 3-5 MB.
Now that you have a rough measure of the size of a megabyte, now on to megabits. A megabit is about 1/8 of a megabyte, and it is a measure of data transfer, so 8mbps(megabits per second) is equals to 1 MB. So if you were thinking that 1 mbps is equals to 1 megabyte per second, today you learn that your internet speed is 8 times slower that what you thought it was.
So how do I check my internet speed?
Here at TechOut, we recommend the Speed Test by Ookla, it gives good gauge on your internet speed, and then you can find out if your ISP is really giving you the speed that you are paying for.
Some factors to take note of:
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