Network Speeds

nominal
speed		 UDP TCP/IP
cellphone to 38.4 kbps 10 kbps "handy" in Europe
V.34 56 kbps 30 kbps modem
ISDN 64 kbps/ch 50 kbps/ch ISDN
cable, DSL ~1.5 Mbps 500 kbps "broadband"
Bluetooth to 1 Mbps ~30 feet
T1 1.5 Mbps 24 channels
E1 2 Mbps "Euro T1" 32 channels
2 GHz UMTS "3G" 2 Mbps ~60 kbps "gouge-o-matic"
Ricochet 128 kbps ~60 kbps 900 MHz
D2B 5.6 Mbps car fiber, 1992+
5.9 GHz DSRC 6 Mbps/ch 3.4/ch 2.7/ch inter-vehicle, ~600 ft/hop
ethernet 10 Mbps
2.4 GHz 802.11b 11 Mbps 7.1 5.9 Wi-Fi, wireless ethernet
2.4 GHz 802.11g 54 Mbps 16.9 11.8 faster wireless ethernet
10-66 GHz 802.16 70 Mbps 7 over 12 mi WiMAX wireless broadb.
MOST 25 Mbps car fiber, 2002+
T3 45 Mbps past net backbone
OC-1 52 Mbps slowest fiber, not used
5.9 GHz 802.11a <54 Mbps 30.9 24.4 Driveby InfoFueling, 2001
fast ethernet 100 Mbps
MOST 150 150 Mbps car fiber, 2012+
OC-3 155 Mbps 150 120
2.4/5 GHz 802.11n 600 Mbps 240 dual band, 4 channel
OC-12 622 Mbps 600 470 present net backbone
record over 6800 mi 923 Mbps 923 Stanford-Amsterdam
gigabit ethernet 1 Gbps Telseon, Yipes
HDTV 1.2 Gbps uncompressed video
MOST x 50 1.25 Gbps automobile glass fiber
OC-48 2.5 Gbps 2.4 1.9 telco backbone
OC-192 10 Gbps 9.6 7.5 popular, e.g. Qwest
fast gigabit ethernet 10 Gbps
OC-48 with WDM 40 Gbps wave division multiplexed
OC-768 40 Gbps "NExt step" e.g. AT&T
AC-1 160 Gbps atlantic crossing
OC-3072 160 Gbps "Duh, that's pretty fast"
Yellow/AC-2 640 Gbps 320 Gbps lit
Apollo 3.2 Tbps/leg DWDM
OC-768 w DWDM 6.4 Tbps e.g. Enkido
DWDM 10 Tbps dense WDM
glass fiber 75 Tbps fiber capacity

Apple Insider 

kbps:     Kilo  bits per second                                    1,000 bps
Mbps:     Mega  bits per second                                1,000,000 bps  
Gbps:     Giga  bits per second                            1,000,000,000 bps
Tbps:     Tera  bits per second                        1,000,000,000,000 bps

Pbps:     Peta  bits per second                    1,000,000,000,000,000 bps
Ebps:     Exa   bits per second                1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bps
Zbps:     Zetta bits per second            1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bps
Ybps:     Yotta bits per second        1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bps

With Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM), using different optical wavelengths, the fiber bandwith can be increased by a factor of about 16. "Narrowband dinosaurs" are deploying WDM since it is less expensive than laying more fiber.

Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) uses high-Q laser photons with single lambda bandwidth, limited only by the uncertainty principle discovered by Werner Heisenberg, allowing up to 10,000 adjacent channels within the amplifier gain!

Ride the light.

WH Networks