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Data Rate Unit Converter

Convert data rates instantly: bps ↔ kbps ↔ Mbps ↔ Gbps and bytes/sec. Includes presets for UART (9600 bps), CAN (1 Mbps), Ethernet (100 Mbps), and GbE. Also converts baud rate to kbps.

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Formula

1byte=8bits,1Mbps=106bps1 byte = 8 bits, 1 Mbps = 10⁶ bps

How It Works

This calculator converts between bits per second (bps), bytes per second (B/s), and their kilo/mega/giga multiples for network engineers, firmware developers, and systems architects. Per IEEE 802 and IEC 80000-13, the critical distinction is bits (b) vs bytes (B): 1 byte = 8 bits exactly. Network speeds use bits (100 Mbps Ethernet), while storage uses bytes (100 MB/s SSD). SI prefixes follow decimal convention for networks (1 Mbps = 10^6 bps per IEEE) but binary for storage (1 MiB = 2^20 bytes per IEC). A '100 Mbps' connection downloads at 12.5 MB/s maximum (100/8), minus protocol overhead. Shannon's theorem sets theoretical limits: C = B × log2(1 + SNR), giving 10 Gbps maximum for a 1 GHz channel at 30 dB SNR.

Worked Example

Problem

A LoRa sensor transmits 20-byte packets every 60 seconds using SF7 (5.47 kbps). Calculate daily data usage, compare with SF12 (293 bps), and determine battery impact.

Solution
  1. Packet size: 20 bytes = 160 bits (payload only)
  2. SF7 air time: 160 bits / 5470 bps = 29.3 ms
  3. SF12 air time: 160 bits / 293 bps = 546 ms (18.6x longer)
  4. Daily packets: 24 × 60 = 1440 packets
  5. Daily data: 1440 × 20 bytes = 28,800 bytes = 28.8 kB = 230.4 kb
  6. Daily TX time at SF7: 1440 × 29.3 ms = 42.2 s
  7. Daily TX time at SF12: 1440 × 546 ms = 786 s = 13.1 min
  8. Battery impact: at 40 mA TX current, SF7 uses 0.47 mAh/day, SF12 uses 8.7 mAh/day (18x more)

Practical Tips

  • ✓Serial protocol speeds per IEEE/TIA: UART 9600-115200 bps typical, SPI 1-50 Mbps, I2C 100 kbps (standard) / 3.4 Mbps (HS), CAN 1 Mbps, RS-485 10 Mbps, USB 2.0 480 Mbps, USB 3.2 20 Gbps, PCIe 4.0 16 GT/s per lane
  • ✓Wireless data rates per IEEE 802.11: WiFi 6 (802.11ax) up to 9.6 Gbps theoretical (1201 Mbps single stream), Bluetooth 5.0 2 Mbps PHY, LoRa 0.3-50 kbps, 5G NR up to 20 Gbps. Actual throughput is 30-70% of PHY rate due to overhead
  • ✓Buffer sizing: bytes_needed = rate_Bps × latency_s. For 100 Mbps with 10 ms jitter buffer: 12.5 MB/s × 0.01 s = 125 kB minimum. Add 2-3x margin for burst handling

Common Mistakes

  • ✗Confusing Mbps (megabits/sec, lowercase 'b') with MB/s (megabytes/sec, uppercase 'B') - 100 Mbps = 12.5 MB/s, not 100 MB/s. ISPs advertise Mbps; download managers show MB/s - a 100 Mbps connection shows ~12 MB/s downloads
  • ✗Ignoring protocol overhead - UART 8N1 uses 10 bits per byte (start + 8 data + stop), so 115200 baud = 11,520 bytes/s maximum, not 14,400. TCP/IP adds 40-byte headers per packet, reducing effective throughput by 3-5%
  • ✗Mixing decimal (SI) and binary (IEC) prefixes - 1 MB = 10^6 bytes (SI), 1 MiB = 2^20 = 1,048,576 bytes (IEC). A '1 TB' drive is 1,000 GB (SI) = 931 GiB (binary), appearing '7% smaller' in OS

Frequently Asked Questions

They're measuring different things: 1 Gbps (gigabit) = 125 MB/s (megabytes). A 1 GB/s (gigabyte/s) disk is 8x faster than 1 Gbps network. Modern NVMe SSDs: 3-7 GB/s read. 10 GbE network: 1.25 GB/s. 100 GbE: 12.5 GB/s - only then does network match fast storage.
Per ITU-T: baud = symbols/second, bit rate = bits/second. For binary signaling (UART, RS-232): baud = bit rate. For multi-level signaling: bit rate = baud × log2(levels). QAM-64 (64 levels = 6 bits/symbol) at 1 Mbaud = 6 Mbps. Ethernet 100BASE-TX uses 3-level MLT-3 at 125 Mbaud for 100 Mbps.
Per RS-232 standard: 8N1 format uses 1 start + 8 data + 1 stop = 10 bits per byte. Efficiency = 8/10 = 80%. At 115200 baud: max throughput = 115200/10 = 11,520 bytes/s = 11.52 kB/s. With parity (8E1 or 8O1): 11 bits/byte, efficiency = 72.7%.
Per respective IEEE/3GPP standards: Bluetooth Classic 2-3 Mbps EDR, BLE 1-2 Mbps PHY (125-500 kbps effective), WiFi 6 up to 1201 Mbps/stream, Zigbee 250 kbps, Z-Wave 100 kbps, LoRa 0.3-50 kbps (range tradeoff), 5G NR 100 Mbps typical, 20 Gbps peak (mmWave, short range).

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