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Re: transfer speed data

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Michael Stone (12020-12-23):
> No, network speeds are traditionally measured in bits because networks
> transferred data in bits and telcos dealt with bits, and they sold and
> billed bits. Computer internals were measured in bytes and words because
> they transferred data in bytes and words. Some people do now talk about
> network speeds for computers in byte units, but you're really just swapping
> one source of confusion for another when you do that. (There's an immense
> amount of existing tooling for network-related information that already uses
> bits, so everything that decides bytes are better for networking requires
> conversion when dealing with most other networking tools even if it
> eliminates conversion when dealing with filesystem or memory tools.) There
> isn't one "right answer" that magically simplifies communications.

I read this paragraph as the defense of a cargo cult.

>              "octet" was a term that was actually needed before bytes were
> standardized to 8 bits, but that usage confuses far more people than it
> helps these days.

You are missing part of the issue: many people do not know these
details, not only will they neglect proper capitalization, but they may
also mistake one word for a typo, and possibly "fix" it. Or maybe they
are not native English speakers and their accent will mangle the
difference when speaking.

Octet may confuse somebody *once*, but then they have learned something,
and the risk of ambiguousness is much much lower.

Anyway, this is getting out of topic, I will probably not continue
discussing this subthread.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George

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Thread

transfer speed data mick crane <mick.crane@gmail.com> - 2020-12-23 02:00 +0100
  Re: transfer speed data Bob Weber <bobrweber@gmail.com> - 2020-12-23 02:40 +0100
  Re: transfer speed data Georgi Naplatanov <gosho@oles.biz> - 2020-12-23 02:50 +0100
  Re: transfer speed data Jeremy Ardley <jeremy@ardley.org> - 2020-12-23 02:50 +0100
    Re: transfer speed data Jeremy Ardley <jeremy@ardley.org> - 2020-12-23 03:00 +0100
      Re: transfer speed data Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2020-12-23 16:10 +0100
        Re: transfer speed data Jeremy Ardley <jeremy@ardley.org> - 2020-12-23 16:40 +0100
          Re: transfer speed data Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2020-12-23 17:00 +0100
            Re: transfer speed data Jeremy Ardley <jeremy@ardley.org> - 2020-12-23 17:20 +0100
              Re: transfer speed data Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2020-12-23 18:40 +0100
  Re: transfer speed data Andy Smith <andy@strugglers.net> - 2020-12-23 05:00 +0100
    Re: transfer speed data Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2020-12-23 11:00 +0100
      Re: transfer speed data Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-12-23 15:50 +0100
        Re: transfer speed data Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2020-12-23 17:10 +0100
        Re: transfer speed data David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-12-23 18:50 +0100
          Re: transfer speed data Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-12-23 19:20 +0100
            Re: transfer speed data David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2020-12-24 02:30 +0100
              Re: transfer speed data Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2020-12-24 10:10 +0100
                Re: transfer speed data Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2020-12-24 17:10 +0100
      Re: transfer speed data Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2020-12-23 16:20 +0100
        Re: transfer speed data Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2020-12-23 17:20 +0100
          Re: transfer speed data Michael Stone <mstone@debian.org> - 2020-12-24 17:10 +0100
    Re: transfer speed data deloptes <deloptes@gmail.com> - 2020-12-23 12:20 +0100
  Re: transfer speed data George Shuklin <george.shuklin@gmail.com> - 2020-12-23 23:00 +0100

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