[c-nsp] Bit, byte huh?

[Adam Greene]

Just to complicate things further, it's my understanding that the metric 
multipliers (kilo-, giga-, etc) conventionally mean different things 
depending on whether you're measuring utilization/storage or bandwidth.

Utilization/Storage:
kilo- = (1024)*
giga- = (1024)(1024)*

Bandwidth:
kilo- = (1000)*
giga- = (1000)(1000)*

Adam

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ziv Leyes" <zivl at gilat.net>
To: <cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net>
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 3:31 AM
Subject: Re: [c-nsp] Bit, byte huh?


> One of the first things I've learnt is that bandwidth is measured in bits 
> while memory/disk space/ file size are measured in bytes.
> Since then I always had arguments with my colleagues, for example, when I 
> worked at a very large ISP, the customer's links in bigger circuits were 
> limited by traffic shaping the sub interfaces, so the guys that "taught" 
> me how to do it told me to set it like this, for example of a 4/2Mb link.
>
> interface atm0/1.30
> bandwidth 4096 (this was only for the MRTG)
> rate-limit input 4096000 blah blah blah...
> rate-limit output 2048000 blah blah...
>
>
> And I always told them that we sell BITS, not bytes, but the "marketing" 
> convention got the customers used to talk in bytes, perhaps IE browser is 
> guilty because when a customer measures his bandwidth it checks at how 
> many BYTES per second they download a file from a website. Therefore, when 
> you sell 4Mb you need to give them 1x1024 bandwidth units, 1M is 1024, 2M 
> is 2048, and so on.
> I gave up on this battle, I can't change the world! But I still believe 
> that 1M is one million BITS!
>
> Ziv
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net 
> [mailto:cisco-nsp-bounces at puck.nether.net] On Behalf Of Dracul
> Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 4:24 AM
> To: cisco-nsp at puck.nether.net
> Subject: [c-nsp] Bit, byte huh?
>
> Hi, I was wondering what unit of bandwidth measurement does Internet
> Bandwidth Providers usually use?  Megabits or Megabytes?
> in the usual, cisco router and switches, how do we measure bandwidth? by 
> bit
> or by byte? It is a bit confusing as 1 byte = 8bits right?
> I'm afraid some of my calculations might be off when measuring bandwidth 
> in
> routers and switches. Thanks!
>
> regards,
> chris
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