Orders of magnitude (bit rate)
# Orders of magnitude (bit rate)

An order of magnitude is generally a factor of ten. A quantity growing by four orders of magnitude implies it has grown by a factor of 10000 or $10^4.$ However, because computers are binary, orders of magnitude are sometimes given as powers of two.

This article presents a list of multiples, sorted by orders of magnitude, for bit rates measured in bits per second. Since some bit rates may measured in other quantities of data or time (like MB/s), information to assist with converting to and from these formats is provided. This article assumes the following:

* A group of 8 bits (8 bit) constitutes one byte (1 B). The byte is the most common unit of measurement of information (megabyte, mebibyte, gigabyte, gibibyte, etc.).
* The decimal SI prefixes kilo, mega etc., are powers of 10. The power of two equivalents are the binary prefixes kibi, mebi, etc.

Accordingly:

* 1 kB (kilobyte) = 1000 bytes = 8000 bits
* 1 KiB (kibibyte) = $2^{10}$ bytes = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits
* 1 kbit (kilobit) = 125 bytes = 1000 bits
* 1 Kibit (kibibit) = $2^{10}$ bits = 1024 bits = 128 bytes

| Factor (bit/s) | SI prefix | Value | Field | Item |
| - | - | - | - | - |
| $10^{−2}$ | | $5.0×10^{−2}$ bit/s | Text data | Project ELF bit rate for transmitting 3-letter codes to US nuclear submarines |
| $10^0$ | bit/s | | | |
| $10^1$ | | $5.0×10^1$ bit/s | Positioning system | Bit rate for transmissions from GPS satellites |
| $10^1$ | | $5.6×10^1$ bit/s | Text data | Bit rate for a skilled operator in Morse code |
| $10^3$ | kbit/s | $4×10^3$ bit/s | Audio data | Minimum achieved for encoding recognizable speech (using special-purpose speech codecs) |
| $10^3$ | kbit/s | $8×10^3$ bit/s | Audio data | Low bit rate telephone quality |
| $10^4$ | |
| $10^4$ | | $3.2×10^4$ bit/s | Audio data | MW quality and ADPCM voice in telephony, doubling the capacity of a 30 chan link to 60 ch. |
| $10^4$ | | $5.6×10^4$ bit/s | Networking | 56kbit modem – 56 kbit/s – 56,000 bit/s |
| $10^4$ | | $6.4×10^4$ bit/s | Networking | 64 kbit/s in an ISDN B channel or best quality, uncompressed telephone line. |
| $10^5$ | | $1.28×10^5$ bit/s | Audio data | 128 kbit/s MP3 – 128,000 bit/s |
| $10^5$ | | $1.92×10^5$ bit/s | Audio data | Nearly CD quality for a file compressed in the MP3 format |
| $10^6$ | Mbit/s | $1.4112×10^6$ bit/s | Audio data | CD audio (uncompressed, 16 bit samples × 44.1 kHz × 2 channels) |
| $10^6$ | Mbit/s | $1.536×10^6$ bit/s | Networking | 24 channels of telephone in the US, or a good VTC T1. |
| $10^6$ | Mbit/s | $2×10^6$ bit/s | Video data | 30 channels of telephone audio or a Video Tele-Conference at VHS quality |
| $10^6$ | Mbit/s | $8×10^6$ bit/s | Video data | DVD quality |
| $10^7$ | | $1×10^7$ bit/s | Networking | Classic Ethernet |
| $10^7$ | | $1×10^7$ bit/s | Biology | Research suggests that the human retina transmits data to the brain at the rate of ca. $10^7$ bit/sec |
| $10^7$ | | $2.7×10^7$ bit/s | Video data | HDTV quality |
| $10^8$ | | $1×10^8$ bit/s | Networking | Fast Ethernet |
| $10^8$ | | $4.8×10^8$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | USB 2.0 High-Speed (interface signalling rate) |
| $10^8$ | | $7.86×10^8$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | FireWire IEEE 1394b-2002 S800 |
| $10^8$ | | $9.5×10^8$ bit/s | Computer storage | Harddrive read, Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103Uj |
| $10^9$ | Gbit/s | $1×10^9$ bit/s | Networking | Gigabit Ethernet |
| $10^9$ | Gbit/s | $1.067×10^9$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | Parallel ATA UDMA 6; conventional PCI 32 bit 33 MHz – 133 MB/s |
| $10^9$ | Gbit/s | $1.244×10^9$ bit/s | Networking | OC-24, a 1.244 Gbit/s SONET data channel |
| $10^9$ | Gbit/s | $1.5×10^9$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | SATA 1.5Gbit/s – First generation (interface signaling rate) |
| $10^9$ | Gbit/s | $3×10^9$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | SATA 3Gbit/s – Second generation (interface signaling rate) |
| $10^9$ | Gbit/s | $5×10^9$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | USB 3.0 SuperSpeed (interface signaling rate) |
| $10^9$ | Gbit/s | $6×10^9$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | SATA 6Gbit/s – Third generation (interface signaling rate) |
| $10^9$ | Gbit/s | $8.533×10^9$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | PCI-X 64 bit 133 MHz – 1,067 MB/s |
| $10^9$ | Gbit/s | $9.953×10^9$ bit/s | Networking | OC-192, a 9.953 Gbit/s SONET data channel |
| $10^{10}$ | | $1.0×10^{10}$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | Thunderbolt |
| $10^{10}$ | | $1.0×10^{10}$ bit/s | Networking | 10 Gigabit Ethernet |
| $10^{10}$ | | $1.0×10^{10}$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | USB 3.1 SuperSpeed 10 Gbit/s (interface signaling rate) |
| $10^{10}$ | | $3.9813×10^{10}$ bit/s | Networking | OC-768, a 39.813 Gbit/s SONET data channel, the fastest in current use |
| $10^{10}$ | | $4.0×10^{10}$ bit/s | Networking | 40 Gigabit Ethernet |
| $10^{10}$ | | $8×10^{10}$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | PCI Express 2.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate) |
| $10^{10}$ | | $9.6×10^{10}$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | InfiniBand 12X QDR |
| $10^{11}$ | | $1.0×10^{11}$ bit/s | Networking | 100 Gigabit Ethernet |
| $10^{11}$ | | $1.28×10^{11}$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | PCI Express 3.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate) |
| $10^{11}$ | | $2.0×10^{11}$ bit/s | Networking | 200 Gigabit Ethernet |
| $10^{11}$ | | $2.56×10^{11}$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | PCI Express 4.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate) |
| $10^{11}$ | | $4.0×10^{11}$ bit/s | Networking | 400 Gigabit Ethernet |
| $10^{11}$ | | $5.12×10^{11}$ bit/s | Computer data interfaces | PCI Express 5.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate) |
| $10^{12}$ | Tbit/s | $1.28×10^{12}$ bit/s | Networking | SEA-ME-WE 4 submarine communications cable – 1.28 terabits per second |
| $10^{12}$ | Tbit/s | $3.84×10^{12}$ bit/s | Networking | I-ME-WE submarine communications cable – design capacity of 3.84 terabits per second |
| $10^{14}$ | | $2.45×10^{14}$ bit/s | Networking | Projected average global internet traffic in 2015 according to Cisco's 2011 VNI IP traffic forecast |
| $10^{15}$ | Pbit/s | $1.050×10^{15}$ bit/s | Networking | Data rate over a 14 transmission core optical fiber developed by NEC and Corning researchers. |
