Why is file size measured in megabytes but internet speed measured in megabits?
In: Technology
This does have a historic presidence. We find the same terms used in the same way all the way back in the 60s. This was before we standardized on 8 bits in a byte. There are examples of systems using byte sizes all the way from 5 bits to 24 bits and everything in between. And because you are using any of these when transfering data over the same link it did not make sense to use bytes when talking about bandwidth. However storage was more dependent on the byte size and even had hardware error detection for each byte. That made it more sensible to talk about bytes when talking about storage. Another thing is that the term bandwidth comes from radio communications where it is used to describe a certain width of the frequency band that is in use. And it turns out that the amount of bits you can transfer through a cetrain bandwidth is the same as the frequency of the bandwidth. So a 20MHz bandwidth signal can transfer 20Mbit/s using trivial modulations.
Latest Answers