Which is faster – Kbps or Mbps?

Answer: Kbps stands for "kilobits per second," while Mbps stands for "megabits per second." Because one megabit is equal to 1,000 kilobits, 1 Mbps is 1000 times faster than 1 Kbps.

Important: The lowercase "b" in Kbps and Mbps means "bit," not byte. One byte is equal to eight bits. For example, 2 MBps equals 16 Mbps. This is a small semantic difference, but it makes a large difference when measuring data. Data transfer rates are typically measured in bits, while data storage capacity is usually measured in bytes.

Published: November 13, 2003   —   Updated: March 3, 2017 — by Per Christensson