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 10⁴. 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) = 2¹⁰ bytes = 1024 bytes = 8192 bits
• 1 kbit (kilobit) = 125 bytes = 1000 bits
• 1 Kibit (kibibit) = 2¹⁰ 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 [1][2]
100	bit/s
101		5.0×101 bit/s	Positioning system	Bit rate for transmissions from GPS satellites [3]
		5.6×101 bit/s	Text data	Bit rate for a skilled operator in Morse code[4]
103	kbit/s	4×103 bit/s	Audio data	Minimum achieved for encoding recognizable speech (using special-purpose speech codecs)
		8×103 bit/s	Audio data	Low bit rate telephone quality
104
		3.2×104 bit/s	Audio data	MW quality and ADPCM voice in telephony, doubling the capacity of a 30 chan link to 60 ch.
		5.6×104 bit/s	Networking	56kbit modem – 56 kbit/s – 56,000 bit/s
		6.4×104 bit/s	Networking	64 kbit/s in an ISDN B channel or best quality, uncompressed telephone line.
105		1.28×105 bit/s	Audio data	128 kbit/s MP3 – 128,000 bit/s
		1.92×105 bit/s	Audio data	Nearly CD quality[citation needed] for a file compressed in the MP3 format
106	Mbit/s	1.4112×106 bit/s	Audio data	CD audio (uncompressed, 16 bit samples × 44.1 kHz × 2 channels)
		1.536×106 bit/s	Networking	24 channels of telephone in the US, or a good VTC T1.
		2×106 bit/s	Video data	30 channels of telephone audio or a Video Tele-Conference at VHS quality
		8×106 bit/s	Video data	DVD quality
107		1×107 bit/s	Networking	Classic Ethernet
		1×107 bit/s	Biology	Research suggests that the human retina transmits data to the brain at the rate of ca. 107 bit/sec[5][6]
		2.7×107 bit/s	Video data	HDTV quality
108		1×108 bit/s	Networking	Fast Ethernet
		4.8×108 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	USB 2.0 High-Speed (interface signalling rate)
		7.86×108 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	FireWire IEEE 1394b-2002 S800
		9.5×108 bit/s	Computer storage	Harddrive read, Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103Uj [7]
109	Gbit/s	1×109 bit/s	Networking	Gigabit Ethernet
		1.067×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	Parallel ATA UDMA 6; conventional PCI 32 bit 33 MHz – 133 MB/s
		1.244×109 bit/s	Networking	OC-24, a 1.244 Gbit/s SONET data channel
		1.5×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	SATA 1.5 Gbit/s – First generation (interface signaling rate)
		2.5×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 1.0 ×1 (interface signaling rate)
		3×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	SATA 3Gbit/s – Second generation (interface signaling rate)
		5×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	USB 3.0 SuperSpeed (interface signaling rate)
		5×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 2.0 ×1 (interface signaling rate)
		6×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	SATA 6Gbit/s – Third generation (interface signaling rate)
		8×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 3.0 ×1 (interface signaling rate)
		8.533×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI-X 64 bit 133 MHz – 1,067 MB/s
		9.953×109 bit/s	Networking	OC-192, a 9.953 Gbit/s SONET data channel
1010		1.0×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	Thunderbolt
		1.0×1010 bit/s	Networking	10 Gigabit Ethernet
		1.0×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	USB 3.1 SuperSpeed 10 Gbit/s (interface signaling rate)
		1.6×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 4.0 ×1 (interface signaling rate)
		3.2×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 5.0 ×1 (interface signaling rate)
		3.9813×1010 bit/s	Networking	OC-768, a 39.813 Gbit/s SONET data channel, the fastest in current use
		4.0×1010 bit/s	Networking	40 Gigabit Ethernet
		4.0×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 1.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate)
		8.0×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 2.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate)
		9.6×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	InfiniBand 12X QDR
1011		1.0×1011 bit/s	Networking	100 Gigabit Ethernet
		1.28×1011 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 3.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate)
		2.0×1011 bit/s	Networking	200 Gigabit Ethernet
		2.56×1011 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 4.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate)
		4.0×1011 bit/s	Networking	400 Gigabit Ethernet
		5.12×1011 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 5.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate)
1012	Tbit/s	1.28×1012 bit/s	Networking	SEA-ME-WE 4 submarine communications cable – 1.28 terabits per second [8]
		3.84×1012 bit/s	Networking	I-ME-WE submarine communications cable – design capacity of 3.84 terabits per second [9]
1014		2.45×1014 bit/s	Networking	Projected average global internet traffic in 2015 according to Cisco's 2011 VNI IP traffic forecast [10][11]
1015	Pbit/s	1.050×1015 bit/s	Networking	Data rate over a 14 transmission core optical fiber developed by NEC and Corning researchers.[12]

See also

• Data-rate units
• List of interface bit rates
• Spectral efficiency
• Orders of magnitude (data)
• Orders of magnitude (time)

References

1. Heppenheimer, T. A. (April 1987). "Signaling Subs". Popular Science. 230 (4). New York: 44–48.
2. Source specifies a transmission rate of 3 characters in 5 minutes. An uppercase character can be represented with 5 bits.
3. "The Promising Marriage of Wireless and GPS Technologies" (PDF). U-blox. November 2009. p. 7. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
4. WPM, or Words Per Minute, is the number of times the word "PARIS" is transferred per minute. Strictly speaking the code is quinary, accounting inter-element, inter-letter, and inter-word gaps, yielding 50 binary elements (bits) per one word. Therefore 40 wpm is 2000 bits/min or 55.6 bit/s. Counting characters, including inter-word gaps, gives six characters per word or 240 characters per minute, and finally four characters per second.
5. Penn researchers calculate how much the eye tells the brain, 26 July 2006
6. How Much the Eye Tells the Brain
7. "Samsung overtakes".
8. "Fujitsu Completes Construction of SEA-ME-WE 4 Submarine Cable Network". Fujitsu Press Releases. Fujitsu. 13 December 2005. Archived from the original on 17 March 2007. Retrieved 31 January 2008.
9. "Imewe Picks Alcatel-Lucent". LR Mobile News. 11 February 2008. Archived from the original on 23 May 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2013.
10. "Cisco: The Internet Is, Like, Really Big, and Getting Bigger". Dow Jones & Company. 1 June 2011. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
11. Calculated based on Cisco's figure of 966 exabytes per year, using the astronomical definition of a Julian year (365.25 days per year, 86,400 seconds per day).
12. "NEC, Corning claim petabit transmission over a single optical fiber". PennWell. 17 January 2013. Retrieved 4 August 2013.