Gigabit vs gigabyte? If you’re new to the world of internet connectivity or you’re interested in learning more about our 10Gbps internet, you may find yourself wondering what the difference is between these two terms. There’s no need to worry though, as the expert M247 team is here to help!
As leading experts in the world of connectivity, we’re perfectly primed to teach you all about the differences between gigabits and gigabytes. Hopefully, once you’ve read through this page, the question of ‘gigabit vs gigabyte’ will no longer be a mystery.
However, if you feel that you need a little more technical advice when browsing through our broad range of services, we’ll be happy to help – please get in touch here to further discuss your options.
Gigabit vs Gigabyte: The Basics
Before we explore exactly what a gigabit and a gigabyte are, let’s first take a look at the terms ‘bit’ and ‘byte’. Both words sound fairly similar at first, but that’s largely where the similarities end.
The word ‘bit’ stands for ‘binary digit’, which is the smallest unit found inside a computer. It’s a basic unit used in the worlds of computer science and mathematics, following a binary pattern of 1s and 0s. The word bit is also used to refer to your internet speed – in most cases, you’ll hear people describe it as ‘… many bits per second.’
On the other hand, a byte is a unit of digital information – 8 bits add up to 1 byte. The term byte will usually be used to refer to your data capacity or the size of your files (e.g. cloud storage and hardware storage).
Gigabit and Gigabytes: How Do They Differ?
Now that we understand the difference between bits and bytes, we can start to answer the question of ‘gigabit vs gigabyte’. The prefix ‘giga’ means one billion, whereas kilo means one thousand and mega means one million. Therefore, a gigabit is one billion bits, and a gigabyte is one billion bytes.
In the IT world, we use unit prefixes from the metric system to denote quantity. For example, 1 kilobit is equivalent to 125 bytes. One megabit is analogous to 125 kilobytes and one gigabit is equal to 125 megabytes. This can go even further too – one terabit is equivalent to 125 gigabytes. It may sound complicated at first, but you’ll soon start to understand these figures in more detail.
Most internet providers refer to their internet and broadband speeds in terms of gigabits per second (Gbps), measuring data transfer rates through your network. As an example of this, gigabit broadband connections advertised with 1Gbps of data should theoretically be able to transfer one gigabit of data every second – provided your gigabit internet connection is stable.
Megabit speeds may still be used for some connections, but they’re slower than gigabits and cannot support as many people at once. However, with gigabit speeds, the risk of lagging is much lower, making gigabit connections a better option for most modern business connections.
In contrast, a gigabyte is a unit of digital information equal to one billion bytes (or eight billion bits). Whilst the term gigabit is used to refer to your connection speed, gigabytes are a measure of your digital storage capacity and file sizes. When you purchase a hard drive, memory card, or use other storage devices like SSDs, cloud storage applications, and USB drives, their capacity is usually listed in gigabytes. Typically, files (such as images or documents) will be listed in megabytes, as they usually have a much smaller size.
As you can see, gigabits and gigabytes are rather different from one another, despite having similar names.
How Do Gigabits and Gigabytes Relate to Business Internet Connections?
You should now have more of an understanding of the distinction between gigabits and gigabytes. If you run a business that is reliant on having a lot of data, you may want to consider implementing a form of digital storage with a high number of gigabytes. However, for personal use at home, larger file sizes will likely not be needed.
If you have low fibre broadband speeds and you’d like to improve your connection, you may want to consider upgrading to a connection with more gigabits. Not only can this improve the overall productivity of your business, but it can also support high-bandwidth applications, which are becoming increasingly common in the digital age. A higher connection speed can lead to higher data transfer rates, ensuring your applications and network run smoothly without the risk of lagging.
This is particularly important nowadays, with more and more people practising remote working since the coronavirus pandemic began in 2020. A higher gigabit speed will ensure that video conference calls run smoothly, improving the quality of the call and enhancing communication and collaboration throughout. Gigabit internet connections also enable home workers to access your business networks and cloud-based services at a fast speed, as well as allowing customers to browse your website with ease.
However, fast transfer speeds and broadband speeds may be less important for personal connections at home, or networks unrelated to your business.
Discover Our Business Leased Lines
Many organisations are now choosing to integrate leased lines into their business operations. With a business leased line, you get your own private fibre connection transferred between your business premises to your network provider. Not only are you guaranteed faster speeds with a leased line, but you can also reduce the risk of cyber security threats, as no one outside of your organisation can access your connection.
At M247, we have a variety of business leased lines on offer, including our extremely fast 10Gbps leased lines and our dedicated wireless leased lines. We offer a variety of bandwidth options to suit your needs, with other speed options including our 100Mbps bearer and our 1Gbps bearer, giving you the flexibility to choose the speed that best suits your business operations.
As one of the UK’s top network service providers, we’re able to offer a range of connectivity solutions that can benefit your business, pushing you to new heights in no time.
If you’d like to enquire about integrating our business leased lines or 10Gbps leased lines into your organisation, please get in touch here.
