Anorder 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:
Accordingly:
| 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) | ||
| 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) | ||
| 6×109 bit/s | Computer data interfaces | SATA 6Gbit/s – Third generation (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) | ||
| 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 | ||
| 8×1010 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] |
