Know the Difference between Mbps (Megabits) or MBps (MegaBytes)

Internet lingo can be confusing, especially when researching different broadband providers to try and find a new high speed broadband connection. To help you understand more about your broadband internet connection speed and to get to the real difference between megabits (Mbps) and (MBps) megabytes, this article has listed it all. To begin to understand how the internet Mbps speed your broadband provider offers affects all aspects of your daily life, let us first look at what these terms, internet Mbps or MBps, even mean.

What do megabits (Mbps) and (MBps) megabytes mean?

To put it simply, Mbps refers to megabits per second while MBps refers to megabytes per second. Thus, the real difference between these two comes not from varying broadband providers or a different type of internet connection but are simply referring to bits versus bytes which are just different units of measurement. If you’ve never heard of megabytes before, that’s probably because megabits are more commonly used when talking about the details of a broadband internet connection. Internet Mbps for streaming, or even internet Mbps speed in general, are commonly used to refer to download and upload speeds in a broadband internet connection but it's important to remember that megabytes affect this too. To explain this further, download speed is how you can watch videos, load information, or view any kind of webpage using your broadband internet connection and this is why knowing your internet Mbps for streaming is important. On the other hand, upload speed is how you put information on the internet. Whether it’s turning on your camera on a Zoom call, posting an article, or a variety of other activities, your upload speed is very important to consider, making your overall internet Mbps speed a major factor when looking for a broadband provider.

While both internet megabits (Mbps) and (MBps) megabytes refer to units related to upload and download speeds, the immediate difference is that megabytes refer to the rate at which download and upload speeds function. If this still seems confusing, let us look at these two speeds in action.

How do megabits (Mbps) and (MBps) megabytes affect me?

Given that internet Mbps or MBps are both important in providing a high-speed broadband connection, they essentially affect all online activity. Whether you are using internet Mbps for streaming to relax with Netflix or general internet Mbps speed for work from home, download and upload speeds are essential for a broadband internet connection. However, if you find yourself in a situation where despite paying for a high-speed broadband connection, your internet connection is still slow and lags, consider the possibility that it is not bandwidth from your broadband provider that is the issue and instead lies in latency.

What counts as a high speed broadband connection?

If you’re confused about the units differentiating internet megabits (Mbps) and (MBps) megabytes, megabits and megabytes, and are looking to understand how much data can be downloaded with a particular Mbps, here are some figures to help put internet Mbps speed into context. To start simply with 1 Mbps, it would take over 8 seconds to load a basic 1 MB webpage and over 28 hours to download one 12 GB HD movie. Obviously, this is shockingly low internet Mbps for streaming and it is doubtful that your broadband provider even offers internet connections with speeds such as this. Switching to a more common speed, with a speedy 100 internet Mbps for streaming, it would take just over 17 minutes to download the same 12 GB HD movie and would load a webpage instantaneously, in under a second. Now that you have these figures as a guide when trying to understand internet Mbps or MBps, you can look at different figures when trying to find the best broadband internet connection for you and understand them completely. You just have to remember the simple fact that a larger file size will download at a slower speed. Thus, if your lifestyle calls for constant downloads of very heavy files, or you haveve made the switch to work from home, you need to ensure that you have a broadband internet connection with a fast internet Mbps speed.

To help you find a high-speed broadband connection from a reliable broadband provider, click here to view Hathway’s various broadband internet connection plans. With fast internet Mbps for streaming, you can now attend all the Zoom calls you need to and then relax with hours of binge- watching without ever having to face lags or delays in quality or speed.