Data Speed Units

Mark.87

I have a quick question regarding internet speeds advertised by ISPs. I know the difference between MB and Mb and that speeds also vary depending on traffic, bla bla bla.

My question is simple (I hope). If an ISP says 50 Mb do they mean Mbps? Obviously a speed must be measured in terms of a time. I’m looking at one ISPs website where they are giving their download speed in Mb and their upload speed in Mbps. Why the discontinuity?

SpaceTime

It's amazing that ISPs can't get these units right in publicity since that's basically totally fundamental to what they do.
I can't imagine a car company turning around and saying The all New S98 - Fuel consumption : 43 pounds top speed 190 kilograms.

It's Mbit/s and usually pronounced "Megabits"

They'll usually quote a cap in GB (Gigabytes) although increasingly there isn't one on a lot of newer ADSL, FTTC and cable products.
Although many are Unlimited*

*limits may apply see T&Cs.

raymix

Just pure ignorance / lack of knowledge, that's all, obviously not written by a person actually working in IT.
Speed is measured in seconds, just like everywhere else.

Nerd stuff:
The whole industry has actually got it all wrong and they know that. Ever heard that 1 MegaByte equals 1024 KiloBytes? Well that's wrong. Kilo stands for thousand, even in IT. 1MB = 1000KB is a correct one.
However, 1 Mebibyte equals 1024 Kibibyte (1MiB = 1024KiB). Notice the i in middle? If you notice ISP actually doing this, hats off they are not monkeys on keyboard.
To give you an idea:

15Mb/s connection will let you download 1GiB file at 1.7MB/s speed roughly over a period of 1 hour.

So obviously, download caps should also be measured in Gibibytes, not Gigabytes.
mmmmkay?

SpaceTime

Go down to the local supermarket and see if you can find 2 MPH of milk !