Thanks, G, for the explanation. I did not know that. Sandi ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gman" <gman.pctt@xxxxxxxxx> To: <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, September 21, 2008 7:24 PM Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- Re: Wireless > Actually, this is a touchy subject because different folks have different > abbreviations for these things and I've seen people arguing over it who > were > on the same side of the issue. lol > > Officially, KB stands for KiloByte while kb is the abbreviation for > kilobit. > The HUGE difference is between the meaning of a bit verses a byte. > Unfortunately, a lot of folks, including me, are usually lazy and only > capitalize the first letter to indicate the difference, and that usually > just leads to even more confusion. > > > So, let's talk bits & bytes: > A bit is a term representing a single binary state which can be either a 0 > or a 1. In physical terms, it represents the presence or absence of > voltage > within a component (usually a transistor) at any given moment. If there > is > sufficient voltage, it's considered to be a '1'. If there is not enough > voltage (or no voltage at all), it's viewed as a '0'. > > A byte is an 8-bit stream of these bits. In other words, it takes 8 bits > to > equal a byte. Every alphanumerical character within this email represents > a > single byte, including the spaces between the words. To represent these > characters in binary form, electronic systems designers devised a table > that > has been adopted worldwide and an example of the alphabet conversions can > be > seen in the link below. > > http://www.tekmom.com/buzzwords/binaryalphabet.html > > So, to fully answer your question, a byte is 8 times the size of a bit. > So > 1KB = 8kb. If your speed results show that you are getting 1000kb, you > may > want to do the math to see how it's represented in KB's. 1000kbps/8 = > 125KBps. > > Peace, > Gman > > "The only dumb questions are the ones we fail to ask" --------------------------------------------------------------- Please remember to trim your replies (including this sentence and everything below it) and adjust the subject line as necessary. To unsubscribe or change your email settings: //www.freelists.org/webpage/pctechtalk To access our Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PCTechTalk/messages/ //www.freelists.org/archives/pctechtalk/ To contact only the PCTT Mod Squad, write to: pctechtalk-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To join the PCTableTalk off-topic group, send a blank email to: pctabletalk+subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---------------------------------------------------------------