[newbie] KB/s....kb/sec can somome explain please

[poogle]

When connected through a V90 56k modem using kppp, when I view a website 
through konqueror I see numbers in the bottom left of the konqueror window 
that say such as 3.6KB/s , 7.9KB/s etc, the kppp statistics window shows a 
line at the top of it's graph which says for example max.12.0 kb/sec.
Am I right in assuming that the first example shows the download speed and 
the second shows the connection speed, if so does 12.0kb/sec really mean that 
I am only connecting at 12 kilobits ?