> It is very confusing, because for everything else i.e file sizes the standard is bytes. No, this isn't true. It was true once, but things have changed. Now t

> It is very confusing, because for everything else i.e file sizes the standard is bytes. No, this isn't true. It was true once, but things have changed. Now there are two standards, one based on multiples of two, the other based on multiples of ten: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mebibit And, more topically, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units 1 kibibit = 1.024 kilobit I'm not saying this is why ISPs use bits per second, but it certainly would serve as an explanation in the absence of a better one. Bits per second mean the same thing in all current schemes for describing a quantity of data or its velocity.