What Kbps and Mbps Indicate & How to Convert Them Mutually

An Overview of Kbps and Mbps

Kbps and mbps are two common data-transfer rate units, so what they stand for respectively? What is kbps? How to convert kbps to mbps or mbps to kbps? MiniTool will tell you the answer in the following content.   

The Kbps (Kilobit per second) is a unit based on Decimal multiples of bits. It can be written as kb/s or kbit/s. The Kilobit per second unit, together with other data-transfer rate, is widely used in many applications including networking, phone-line networks, wireless communications, as well as Internet.

The Mbps (Megabyte per second) is also a unit that is based on Decimal multiple of bits. It can be written as Mb/s or Mbit/s. The Mbps unit is widely used in networking technologies like phone-line networks, wireless communications and the Internet.

In addition, Mbps or Mbit/s is utilized in most modern network definitions. For instance, your computer or smartphone uses a 100mbps LAN card. It is recommended by Internet service providers as download or upload rates. Many Internet connection plans provided by ISPs are described in mbps such as 25mbps, 50mbps, 75mbps.

Kbps vs Mbps

As mentioned above, both the mbps and kbps are data transfer rate units, which are used for the same purpose. However, kbps is more appropriate when network capacity is low. For instance, a 2G mobile network with its 50kbit/s (40kbit/s in reality) capacity is more conveniently written as kbps instead of 0.05mbps.

Besides, kbps can help you make for better posters, banners and advertisement headlines. The only difference between kbps and mbps lies in the magnitude. A 1mbps connection has 1,000 times more capacity than that of 1kbps connection. Network capacity (bandwidth) is often called network speed or connection speed, but it is incorrect in technical angle.

A network with a capacity of 1kbps can transmit 1kbit of data per second.

How to Convert Kbps to Mbps

In different network capacity cases, you need to utilize different data transfer rate units. For example, when network capacity is low, kbps is more suitable. While for download or upload rate, mbps is more proper. Here comes the problem “how to convert kbps to mbps or switch mbps to kbps”.

Alternatively, you can describe it as how many Kilobits per second in a Megabit per second. Both of them are discussing the convert of the two data transfer rate units. In fact, there is a formula to convert the two data transfer rate units.

You can read this post to know the convert between (Megabyte) MB and (Gigabyte) GB: How many Megabytes in A Gigabyte

To convert kbps to mbps, you only need to divide by 1,000. This operation can be done easily by shifting the decimal point 3 positions to the left.

For instance, if you want to convert 2000kbps to mbps, you just need to divide 1000 by using 2000. So, 200kbps is equal to 2mbps. To convert 0.7kbps to mbps, move the decimal point 3 positions to the left of the number. Here, you can calculate that 0.7kbps is equal to 0.007mbps.

If you would like to convert mbps to kbps, you need to multiply 1000. That is to say you should move the decimal point 3 positions to the right. For example, if you need to convert 3mbps to kbps, you can get the final result by multiplying 1000. Therefore, 3mbps is equal to 3000kbps.

When switching 0.6mbps into kbps, you can obtain the final result by moving the decimal point 3 positions to the right. Hence, you can conclude that 0.6mbps is equal to 600kbps.

You may also be interested in this: How Many Gigabytes (GB) Are in a Terabyte (TB)

As you can see, mutually converting kbps (Kilobit per second) and mbps (Megabyte per second) is very easy. You can convert to a suitable data transfer rate according to your actual demand by utilizing the given formula in this article. If you are still not clear, please refer to the given illustration in above.

Final Words

Up to now, the definition of kbps and mbps, kbps vs mbps, mutually convert kbps and mbps have been talked about. You may have a full understanding about mbps and kbps meaning, especially the kbps to mbps and mbps to kbps section.