Its easy to lose yourself in the morass of technical terminologies when shopping for internet providers. For instance, debates over whether you should prioritize internet speed vs. bandwidth or whether you need a Wi-Fi 7 router can easily derail your search if you don't know what to look for. A prevalent and consequential mix up is between Megabits per second (Mbps) and Megabytes per second (MB/s). Although both are measurements of data transfers, confusing them can have major implications.

To understand the two, you first have to grapple with the difference between bits and bytes. Bits are the basic unit of information for computing and measure the binary 1s and 0s of that make up a string of code. Bits per second are commonly used to measure the speed of data transfers, such as internet streaming speeds or download speeds. Bytes, on the other hand, are groups of eight bits – the typical amount to produce a single letter, symbol or number. These metrics are used to describe file sizes or storage space. For instance, you might describe the size of a movie file in terms of bytes. When using bytes per second, you are typically gauging how fast these files can be transferred. Considering both units are too small to meaningfully describe contemporary computing power, the prefix "mega" is added to indicate that each measure one million units. The per-second measures of Mbps and MB/s refer to how quickly a million bits and bytes can move, respectively.

Understanding megabit per second rates is critical to gauging the quality of your home internet speed .

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