Computer wizz please help me understand what exactly a megabit is?

[Russ]

I hear the term megabit and I'm vaguely familiar with it and the difference between megabyte. So is a megabyte how many megabytes of memory can possibly be downloaded in a second? And is megabit how fast your Internet speed actually is? If so please help me understand what a megabit is and does and how many are in a megabyte? Thanks to everyone in advance!

[Matt]

1 megabyte = 8 megabit

[Minas]

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WLfkZR1Q3so...ata_player

[Anthony]

Megabits (per second) is what your internet speed is measured in, while megabytes is what files and download speed for files are measured in (in the latter case, megabytes per second). If your internet connection is 7 megabits per second in download (regardless of your speed in upload), then the theoretical maximum speed you can download a file at would be (7/8 = 0.875, since 1 megabyte = 8 megabit) 0.875 megabytes per second, which amounts to 875 kilobytes per second (KBps), the measurement unit most used for the download speed of files.