Eircom told to sort its ‘bits’ from its ‘bytes’ when it comes to broadband a

bealtine

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/29141-eircom-told-to-sort-its/

The Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) has upheld complaints against Eircom over a radio ad campaign where the telecoms operator confused ‘bits’ per second with the data quantity of ‘bytes’.

In a radio ad campaign that concluded in May, Eircom incorrectly advertised "8 megabyte" broadband speeds as part of a €99.99 bundle, which should have said "8 megabits".

Eight megabytes is the equivalent of 64 megabits (eight bits in one byte).

Two complainants charged that consumers could be misled into thinking the service could download 8 megabytes per second when in reality the service would be eight times slower.

“The committee were of the view that the advertisement had inaccurately referred to a broadband speed that was approximately eight times faster than the actual broadband speed on offer and this was likely to mislead consumers,” the ASAI said.

It said the complaint was upheld on code section 2.24: “An advertisement should not mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise.”

The truth about bits and bytes
Disclosure: Confusing bytes with bits or bits with bytes may seem inexcusable to a seasoned telecoms operator like Eircom, but we have to admit it can happen, too, even here at Silicon Towers. This is especially true when it comes to denoting quantities of data versus bit rate speeds and the odd time a reader has been known to gently rebuke the odd writer for his/her error.

A megabyte, a quantity of data, is 1,024 bytes x 1,000 or 1,024,000 bytes and should be denoted “MB”. For example, a 1.44MB 3.5-inch floppy disk (remember those?) is 1,044,000 bytes. A typical USB key today could come with 128MB or 128,000,000 megabytes.

A megabit is equal to a thousand bits and should denoted “Mb” or when quantifying speeds Mbps (megabits per second), so eight megabits per second would read 8Mbps and so on.

Moral of the story, it can happen to anyone!

John Kennedy

Victor

bealtine wrote: »

For example, a 1.44MB 3.5-inch floppy disk (remember those?) is 1,044,000 bytes.

O rly?

who_me

Let's introduce mibibytes and make this really confusing!

oscarBravo

Wouldn't a mibibyte (as opposed to a mebibyte) be 1/1048576 of a byte, or 1/131072 of a bit? That would be really confusing! :pac:


edit: or would it be 1/1024 of a byte...?

jmcc

Ever had to explain what a nybble is to a "technology" journalist?

Regards...jmcc

BigEejit

bealtine wrote: »

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/29141-eircom-told-to-sort-its/A typical USB key today could come with 128MB or 128,000,000 megabytes.

O rly?

bealtine

jmcc wrote: »

Ever had to explain what a nybble is to a "technology" journalist?

No but I had to explain the difference between bits and bytes once, that was "informative"

oscarBravo

bealtine wrote: »

No but I had to explain the difference between bits and bytes once, that was "informative"

Welcome to the world of the ISP support technician who has to explain to customers ad nauseam why they're only getting one eighth of their advertised package speed when downloading.

bealtine

oscarBravo wrote: »

Welcome to the world of the ISP support technician who has to explain to customers ad nauseam why they're only getting one eighth of their advertised package speed when downloading.

Not that difference:)

"I have 8Mb/s but files are measured in bytes what's the relationship"