Ask The Wizard (Bits vs. Bytes)

What is the difference between bits and bytes?

Signed,

Wonderer

Dear Happy Wonderer,


The terms bit and byte are common in computer networking. Both terms refer to digital data transmitted over a network connection. For example, bits and bytes both may represent network addresses or port numbers.

A bit is a single numeric value, either '1' or '0', that encodes a single unit of digital information. A byte is a sequence of bits; usually eight bits equal one byte.

For example, in Internet Protocol (IP) networking, IP addresses contain 32 bits or 4 bytes. The bits encode the network address so that it can be shared on the network. The bytes divide the bits into groups.

The IP address 192.168.0.1, for instance, is encoded with the following bits and bytes:

11000000 10100100 00000000 00000001

Bits are grouped into bytes to, generally speaking, increase the efficiency of computer hardware, including network equipment, disks and memory.

Oh, and also... The term "bps" specifies network bandwidth in bits per second. The term "Bps", (with a capital 'B'), specifies network bandwidth in bytes per second.

Hope this helps.

Yrs,

The Wizard