Short for
kilobits per second, a measure of
data transfer speed.
Modems, for example, are measured in Kbps. Note that one Kbps is 1,000 bits per second, whereas a KB (kilobyte) is 1,024 bytes. Data transfer rates are measured using the decimal meaning of
K whereas data storage is measured using the powers-of-2 meaning of
K. Technically,
kbps should be spelled with a lowercase
k to indicate that it is decimal but almost everyone spells it with a capital
K.
