[epaik]

One of my pet peeves is how data stream rates are always represented in bits per seconds. It's extremely deceptive to people who don't know the difference between a bit and a byte. We shouldn't measure storage in bytes, but internet speeds in bits.

[WiseWeasel]

You also have to factor in error correction overhead for TCP transmissions. I find it pretty accurate to shift the decimal one spot to the left when estimating maximum real-world Internet transmission speeds in bytes, rather than dividing by 8.