I saw this yesterday in a document about the maximum download speed made available by an Internet service provider.

Problem:
The provider misstated the download speed by one billion times!

Explanation:
The Internet service provider (ISP) was bragging about the maximum download speed that any of its customers could obtain.

The ISP was trying to say that the maximum speed was twelve megabits per second.

The ISP correctly wrote the final three letters correctly because lowercase-B-P-S stands for “bits per second”.

The problem is with the initial, lowercase “m”.

Lowercase “m” stands for milli, the prefix that means 1/1000 and is found in words such as “millimeter”.

The ISP should have used uppercase “M”, which stands for mega, the prefix that means one million and is found in words such as “megapixel”.

So “1 mbps” (with a lowercase “m”) is one billionth as fast as “1 Mbps” (with an uppercase “M”).

Solution:
“12 Mbps”