Bit Rate Order of Magnitude

Bit Rate Order of Magnitude

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
100	bit/s
101		5.0×101 bit/s	Positioning system	Bit rate for transmissions from GPS satellites
101		5.6×101 bit/s	Text data	Bit rate for a skilled operator in Morse code
103	kbit/s	4×103 bit/s	Audio data	Minimum achieved for encoding recognizable speech (using special-purpose speech codecs)
103	kbit/s	8×103 bit/s	Audio data	Low bit rate telephone quality
104
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.
104		5.6×104 bit/s	Networking	56kbit modem – 56 kbit/s – 56,000 bit/s
104		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
105		1.92×105 bit/s	Audio data	Nearly CD quality 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)
106	Mbit/s	1.536×106 bit/s	Networking	24 channels of the telephone in the US, or a good VTC T1.
106	Mbit/s	2×106 bit/s	Video data	30 channels of telephone audio or a Video Tele-Conference at VHS quality
106	Mbit/s	8×106 bit/s	Video data	DVD Quality
107		1×107 bit/s	Networking	Classic Ethernet
107		1×107 bit/s	Biology	Research suggests that the human retina transmits data to the brain at the rate of ca. 107 bit/sec
107		2.7×107 bit/s	Video data	HDTV quality
108		1×108 bit/s	Networking	Fast Ethernet
108		4.8×108 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	USB 2.0 High-Speed (interface signaling rate)
108		7.86×108 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	FireWire IEEE 1394b-2002 S800
108		9.5×108 bit/s	Computer storage	Harddrive read, Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103Uj
109	Gbit/s	1×109 bit/s	Networking	Gigabit Ethernet
109	Gbit/s	1.067×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	Parallel ATA UDMA 6; conventional PCI 32 bit 33 MHz – 133 MB/s
109	Gbit/s	1.244×109 bit/s	Networking	OC-24, a 1.244 Gbit/s SONET data channel
109	Gbit/s	1.5×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	SATA 1.5Gbit/s – First generation (interface signaling rate)
109	Gbit/s	3×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	SATA 3Gbit/s – Second generation (interface signaling rate)
109	Gbit/s	5×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	USB 3.0 SuperSpeed (interface signaling rate)
109	Gbit/s	6×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	SATA 6Gbit/s – Third generation (interface signaling rate)
109	Gbit/s	8.533×109 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI-X 64 bit 133 MHz – 1,067 MB/s
109	Gbit/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
1010		1.0×1010 bit/s	Networking	10 Gigabit Ethernet
1010		1.0×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	USB 3.1 SuperSpeed 10 Gbit/s (interface signaling rate)
1010		3.9813×1010 bit/s	Networking	OC-768, a 39.813 Gbit/s SONET data channel, the fastest in current use
1010		4.0×1010 bit/s	Networking	40 Gigabit Ethernet
1010		8×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 2.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate)
1010		9.6×1010 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	InfiniBand 12X QDR
1011		1.0×1011 bit/s	Networking	100 Gigabit Ethernet
1011		1.28×1011 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 3.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate)
1011		2.0×1011 bit/s	Networking	200 Gigabit Ethernet
1011		2.56×1011 bit/s	Computer data interfaces	PCI Express 4.0 ×16 (interface signaling rate)
1011		4.0×1011 bit/s	Networking	400 Gigabit Ethernet
1011		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
1012	Tbit/s	3.84×1012 bit/s	Networking	I-ME-WE submarine communications cable – design capacity of 3.84 terabits per second
1014		2.45×1014 bit/s	Networking	Projected average global internet traffic in 2015 according to Cisco’s 2011 VNI IP traffic forecast
1015	Pbit/s	1.050×1015 bit/s	Networking	Data rate over a 14 transmission core optical fiber developed by NEC and Corning researchers.

• 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