Kilobit

Short description: Decimal multiple of the unit bit

Multiples of bits
Decimal Value SI 1000 103 kbit kilobit 10002 106 Mbit megabit 10003 109 Gbit gigabit 10004 1012 Tbit terabit 10005 1015 Pbit petabit 10006 1018 Ebit exabit 10007 1021 Zbit zettabit 10008 1024 Ybit yottabit	Binary Value IEC JEDEC 1024 210 Kibit kibibit Kbit kilobit 10242 220 Mibit mebibit Mbit megabit 10243 230 Gibit gibibit Gbit gigabit 10244 240 Tibit tebibit - 10245 250 Pibit pebibit - 10246 260 Eibit exbibit - 10247 270 Zibit zebibit - 10248 280 Yibit yobibit -
See also Nibble Byte Orders of magnitude of data

The kilobit is a multiple of the unit bit for digital information or computer storage. The prefix kilo- (symbol k) is defined in the International System of Units (SI) as a multiplier of 10³ (1 thousand), and therefore,

1 kilobit = 10³bits = 1000 bits.

The kilobit has the unit symbol kbit or kb.

Using the common byte size of 8 bits, 1 kbit is equal to 125 bytes.

The kilobit is commonly used in the expression of data rates of digital communication circuits as kilobits per second (kbit/s or kb/s), or abbreviated as kbps, as in, for example, a 56 kbps PSTN circuit, or a 512 kbit/s broadband Internet connection.

The unit symbol kb (lowercase 'b') is typographically similar to the international standard unit symbol for the kilobyte, i.e. kB (uppercase 'B'). The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) recommends the symbol kbit instead of kb for kilobit. The prefix kilo- is often used in fields of computer science and information technology with a meaning of multiplication by 1024 instead of 1000, contrary to international standards, in conjunction with the base unit byte and bit, in which case it is to be written as Ki-, with a capital letter K, e.g., 1 Kibit = 1024 bits. The decimal SI definition, 1 kbit/s = 1000 bit/s, is used uniformly in the context of telecommunication transmission speeds.

The kilobit is closely related to the kibibit, a unit multiple derived from the binary prefix kibi- (symbol Ki) of the same order of magnitude, which is equal to 2¹⁰bits = 1024 bits, or approximately 2% larger than the kilobit. Despite the definitions of these new prefixes, meant for binary-based quantities of storage by international standards organizations, memory semiconductor chips are still marketed using the metric prefix names to designate binary multiples.

See also

• Data-rate units
• Orders of magnitude (data)
• SI prefix