Carrier Technology

Speed

Physical Medium

Application

Transfer/month

Regular Telephone Service(POTS)

14.4 to 56 Kbps

Twisted Pair Copper Wire

Home and small business access

14.4 = 4.5 gigs

56K = 17.5 gigs

Dedicated 56 Kbps on Frame Relay

56 Kbps

Various

Business e-mail with fairly large attachments

56K = 17.5 gigs

DS0

64 Kbps

Copper Wire

The base signal on a channel in the set of digital Signal Levels

64K =20 gigs

ISDN

BRI: 64 Kbps to 128 Kpbs
PRI: 23 (T-1) or 30 (E1) assignable 64-Kbps channels plus control channel; up to 1.544 Mbps (T-1) or 2.048 (E1)
 
 

BRI: Twisted-pair
PRI: T-1 or E1 line

BRI: Faster home and small business access
PRI: Medium and large enterprise access

128K = 40 gigs
256K = 80 gigs
512K =160gigs

IDSL

128 Kbps

Twisted-pair

Faster home and small business access

128K = 80 gigs

Satellite

400 Kbps (DirecPC)

Airwaves

Faster home and small enterprise access

400K =125gigs

Frame relay

56 Kbps to 1.544 Mbps

Twisted-pair or coaxial cable

Large company backbone for LANs to ISP
ISP to Internet infrastructure

1.24Mbps =

320

1.54Mbps =

481 gigs

T-1 (DS1)

1.544 Mbps

Twisted-pair or optical fiber

Large company to ISP
ISP to Internet infrastructure

481 gigs

E-1 (DS1)

2.048 Mbps

Twisted-pair or optical fiber

European equivalent of T-1

640 gigs

T-1C (DS1C)

3.152 Mbps

Twisted-pair or optical fiber

Large company to ISP
ISP to Internet infrastructure

985 gigs

T-2 (DS2)

6.312 Mbps

Twisted-pair or optical fiber

Large company to ISP
ISP to Internet infrastructure

1972.5 gigs

ADSL

1.544 to 8 Mbps

Twisted-pair (used as a digital, broadband medium)

Home, small business, and enterprise access using existing copper lines

8 Mbps =

2500 gigs

E-2

8.448 Mbps

Twisted-pair or optical fiber

Carries four multiplexed E-1 signals

2640 gigs

Cable modem

512 Kbps to 52 Mbps

Coaxial cable (usually uses Ethernet); in some systems, telephone used for upstream requests

Home, business, school access

52 Mbps =

16250 gigs

Ethernet

10 Mbps

10BASE-T (twisted-pair); 10BASE-2 or -5 (coaxial cable); 10BASE-F (optical fiber)

Most popular business local area network (LAN)

3125 gigs

E-3

34.368 Mbps

Twisted-pair or optical fiber

Carries 16 E-l signals

10740 gigs

T-3 (DS3)

45 Mbps

Coaxial cable

ISP to Internet infrastructure
Smaller links within Internet infrastructure

14062 gigs

OC-1

51.84 Mbps

Optical fiber

ISP to Internet infrastructure
Smaller links within Internet infrastructure

16200 gigs

Fast Ethernet

100 Mbps

100BASE-T4 (twisted pair); 100BASE-TX (coaxial cable); 100BASE-FX (optical fiber)

Workstations with 10 Mbps Ethernet cards can plug into a Fast Ethernet LAN

 

31250 gigs

FDDI

100 Mbps

Optical fiber

Large, wide-range LAN usually in a large company or a larger ISP

31250 gigs

T-3D (DS3D)

135 Mbps

Optical fiber

ISP to Internet infrastructure
Smaller links within Internet infrastructure

42187.5 gigs

E4

139.264 Mbps

Optical fiber

Carries 4 E3 channels
Up to 1,920 simultaneous voice conversations

43520 gigs

OC-3/STM-1

155.52 Mbps

Optical fiber

Large company backbone
Internet backbone

48600 gigs

E5

565.148 Mbps

Optical fiber

Carries 4 E4 channels
Up to 7,680 simultaneous voice conversations

 

176608.75 gigs

OC-12/STM-4

622.08 Mbps

Optical fiber

Internet backbone

1944000 gigs

Gigabit Ethernet

1 Gbps

Optical fiber (and "copper" up to 25 meters)

Workstations/networks with 10/100 Mbps Ethernet will plug into Gigabit Ethernet switches

 

312500 gigs

OC-24

1.244 Gbps

Optical fiber

Internet backbone

388750 gigs

SciNet

2.325 Gbps (15 OC-3 lines)

Optical fiber

Part of the vBNS backbone

726562.5 gigs

OC-48/STM-16

2.488 Gbps

Optical fiber

Internet backbone

777500 gigs

STM-64

10 Gbps

Optical fiber

To be determined

3125000 gigs

OC-256

13.271 Gbps

Optical fiber

Defined but, to the best of our knowledge, not being used

4147187.4 gigs