Change deceptive "Mbps" to the industry standard "MBps".

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Most people do not know the difference. The former is Megabits per second, the latter is Megabytes per second. 1Mbps is 8 times slower than 1MBps. For quite some time now, the byte has been the standard for measurement in computing. It's quite deceptive to consumers to advertise with a non-standard form of measurement that most people don't even know there is a difference. It gets confusing to me sometimes. If I need to download a 17MB file on a 15Mbps line, how long will that take? It's much easier to figure out if you know you're on a 2MBps line (rounded up).

Computer companies don't sell hard drives or CDs or RAM in the Megabit scale to make it seem like there is more than there is, so why do the ISPs do that? It's deceptive, it'd confusing, let's get rid of the madness.

Idea # 176Broadband Consumer Context, mbps, megabyte, megabit, speed naming

Comments

Michael Sullivan 1 month ago

The standard, in fact, is Mbps (also abbreviated Mb/s). Data being transmitted over the Internet is a stream of bits that may or may not represent bytes of computer data. Moreover, the speed of a data link is typically stated as the speed of the physical layer. This will include bits not corresponding to user data, namely bits used to manage the grouping of data into packets, the addressing of the packets, error detection and/or correction, synchronization, acknowledgements, etc. The speed at which user data (e.g., your 17 MB file) is carried will necessarily be less than the raw speed of the physical link because of the data used at lower layers.

slantsixxnews 1 month ago

So then I guess you go to the computer store to upgrade your computer to 16Gb of RAM? I don't know about you, but I don't. The standard in fact really is the byte; from USB thumb drives, to RAM, to hard drives, to any sort of file you can think of.

The only place in the computing industry that uses bits is for Internet transfer speeds. I'm a fairly computer-savvy guy, but I, along with a majority of the population, don't really care about packets and addresses and synchronization and error correction. To most people, computers and the Internet work by magic for all they care, and they don't care.

The standard for measuring a file or storage device is the byte and its multiples (kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, etc.). The measurement of Internet speed to adjust itself to be the same. I don't think anyone cares about the technical aspects of it, they just want it to be the same.

Imagine if you got in your car and the speedometer tells you your speed in miles per hour, and then you get on the freeway marked out in kilometers per hour. If you saw a sign that said "Speed Limit 100" then you'd be pretty excited, up until you realized that the sign was in kilometers, and after being bothered with converting it to miles, you'd only be able to go 60. (rounded off of course)

This is the same with the Internet speeds from the ISPs. People do not know that they are measured in different scales. As I said before, it's deceptive advertisement, and nothing more. It has nothing to do with the levers and pulleys of the operation, it's about deceiving the consumer. If a person has a 3MB music file they want to download on their 30MBps connection, then they would assume that it will take a fraction of a second. What they don't realize is that there 30Mbps connection is really about 4MBps, and that in the real world it will not go that fast. The might get up to 2MBps if they're lucky.

Now what if that 3MB music file is really a 700MB movie file, and their connection isn't so lucky at just 10Mbps. That's a 1.25MBps connection, and again, it won't download at that speed as I'm sure you're more than aware of. Most people would see a 700MB file and think it will take just over a minute to download on a 10Mbps connection, but in reality, it will take much, much longer than that.

As a technical person, I can certainly appreciate the technological operations and limitations of using any sort of electronic. But as a guy who just wants to watch a movie, or listen to a new track that came out, I don't care. I could keep going, but I hope I've clarified what I was trying to say. It's not about the technical aspect of it, it's about the appearances and confusion of MB vs Mb and MBps (or MB/s) vs Mbps.

slantsixxnews 1 month ago

Or for another example, this would be like the EPA posting on new car stickers at the dealer that a particular car gets 160 miles per cubic foot of gas. You'd be thinking that was outrageous, then you go to the gas station and buy your fuel in gallons. You think you're buying a car with great fuel economy, but then you hear that a cubic foot is about 7.5 gallons, so your car really only gets about 21 miles per gallon, which isn't very impressive.

Measuring fuel economy in miles per cubic foot is a perfectly valid way to do it, but it is inconsistent with the way you purchase fuel at the station and how your tank is measured in volume. Just by looking at the numbers you can't make quick calculations if you first need to convert it to a different scale.

And most people don't even know there is a difference as I have already mentioned. What if the abbreviation for miles per cubic foot were the same as the abbreviation for miles per gallon other than a case change? Most people don't know that upper and lower case letters can mean different things, especially when two abbreviations are spelled the same way.

Sure this is a crude analogy, but it is virtually the same thing.

comartin 23 days ago

Computer systems have as far back as I remember (1975) have used bytes for memory, storage, file size etc. (which are not tied to a # of bits, various systems have used more or less bits/byte in the past, reference definition on Wikipedia for more info).

Communications systems have always used bits per second to measure transmission speed and measure throughput in bytes or packets per second. Communications systems have overhead, so the actual throughput is less end to end.

slantsixxnews 23 days ago

I fail to see the logic in stating that because something has been one way for a long time, it can never change. I guess that is a problem with the older generations. Change for the better, change that makes things simpler, change that makes things less confusing should be embraced.

I, along with probably every other person who uses a computer don't care what the standard for computing was 35 years ago. This is the 21st century. Things are measured in bytes. Overhead is negligible when compared to an eight fold difference in what is expected to be delivered, and what is delivered. Hard drives, flash drives, MP3 players, and all content is measured in the byte scale, so why is the rate at which the content is delivered at rated on a scale that is 8 times smaller? Someone who sees a 15Mbps connection thinks they are getting a lot of speed, but they really only get 1/8th of that. B b B b B b B b. What's the difference? It's the same letter. Most people don't know the difference, and for those that do, it's just a pain in the @$$. It's about time we stopped being nostalgic for the obsolete and embrace the future.

comartin 23 days ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measuring_network_throughput

The industry standard for serial communication interfaces is Bits/Second.

Ethernet = bps
WiFi = bps
DSL = bps
Modems = bps

This allows for a very easy comparison and calculation of transmission speeds.

getcommonsense 7 days ago

BYTES IS USED IN STORAGE
BITS IS USED IN DATA RATE/THROUGHPUT.

Any further argument shows a complete failure to understand how things were designed and a failure to recognize and understand internationally-set and recognized standards.

I don't even have a GED and I know that. Where in the world is the common sense?

ian.aldrighetti 3 days ago

I disagree... With speeds it has always been bits. Though, Verizon needs some discipline. In their advertisements, they use a font which is all uppercase, and their speeds say 20MBPS when in reality, it is only 20Mbps... All Verizon has to do is say "Its the font."

False advertising, anyone?

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