Bits or Bytes

Stumbled across an interesting notion the other day regarding download speeds and how they are described. When I chose my wireless broadband plan it was based on a 1Mbps download rate - which is pretty fast, but not as fast as I'd thought - because it isn't 1MBps (note the change in capitals) - which would mean 1MegaByte per second; rather, it's 1MegaBit. There are 8 Mbps to 1 MBps or, in real terms the best speed I'd ever be able to achieve in downloads is 125kb a second (which I think is a pipedream because I'm sure there are a whole lot of factors besides the download speed of your provider which come into play!). However, I've reached 45kb/s yesterday - and when you're used to 3kb/s on dial-up it's blazingly fast!!