Technology Speed Physical Medium Application GSM mobile telephone service 9.6 to 14.4 Kbps RF in space (wireless) Mobile telephone for business and personal use High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data service (HSCSD) Up to 56 Kbps RF in space (wireless) Mobile telephone for business and personal use Regular telephone service (POTS) Up to 56 Kbps twisted pair Home and small business access Dedicated 56Kbps on frame relay 56 Kbps Various Business e-mail with fairly large file attachments DS0 64 Kbps All The base signal on a channel in the set of Digital Signal levels General Packet Radio System (GPRS) 56 to 114 Kbps RF in space (wireless) Mobile telephone for business and personal use ISDN BRI: 64 Kbps to 128 Kbps
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 lineBRI: Faster home and small business access
PRI: Medium and large enterprise accessIDSL 128 Kbps Twisted-pair Faster home and small business access AppleTalk 230.4 Kbps Twisted pair Local area network for Apple devices; several networks can be bridged; non-Apple devices can also be connected Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE) 384 Kbps RF in space (wireless) Mobile telephone for business and personal use satellite 400 Kbps (DirecPC and others) RF in space (wireless) Faster home and small enterprise access frame relay 56 Kbps to 1.544 Mbps Twisted-pair or coaxial cable Large company backbone for LANs to ISP
ISP to Internet infrastructureDS1/T-1 1.544 Mbps Twisted-pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber Large company to ISP
ISP to Internet infrastructureUniversal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS) Up to 2 Mbps RF in space (wireless) Mobile telephone for business and personal use (available in 2002 or later) E-carrier 2.048 Mbps Twisted-pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber 32-channel European equivalent of T-1 T-1C (DS1C)3.152 Mbps Twisted-pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber Large company to ISP
ISP to Internet infrastructureIBM Token Ring/802.5 4 Mbps (also 16 Mbps) Twisted-pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber Second most commonly-used local area network after Ethernet DS2/T-2 6.312 Mbps Twisted-pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber Large company to ISP
ISP to Internet infrastructureDigital Subscriber Line (DSL) 512 Kbps to 8 Mbps Twisted-pair (used as a digital, broadband medium) Home, small business, and enterprise access using existing copper lines E-2 8.448 Mbps Twisted-pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber Carries four multiplexed E-1 signals cable modem 512 Kbps to 52 Mbps
(see "Key and explanation" below)Coaxial cable (usually uses Ethernet); in some systems, telephone used for upstream requests Home, business, school access Ethernet 10 Mbps 10BASE-T (twisted-pair); 10BASE-2 or -5 (coaxial cable); 10BASE-F (optical fiber) Most popular business local area network (LAN) IBM Token Ring/802.5 16 Mbps (also 4 Mbps) Twisted-pair, coaxial cable, or optical fiber Second most commonly-used local area network after Ethernet E-3 34.368 Mbps Twisted-pair or optical fiber Carries 16 E-l signals DS3/ T-3 44.736 Mbps Coaxial cable ISP to Internet infrastructure
Smaller links within Internet infrastructureOC-1 51.84 Mbps Optical fiber ISP to Internet infrastructure
Smaller links within Internet infrastructureHigh-Speed Serial Interface (HSSI) Up to 53 Mbps HSSI cable Between router hardware and WAN lines
Short-range (50 feet) interconnection between slower LAN devices and faster WAN linesFast Ethernet 100 Mbps 100BASE-T (twisted pair); 100BASE-T (twisted pair); 100BASE-T (optical fiber) Workstations with 10 Mbps Ethernet cards can plug into a Fast Ethernet LAN Fiber Distributed-Data Interface (FDDI) 100 Mbps Optical fiber Large, wide-range LAN usually in a large company or a larger ISP T-3D (DS3D)135 Mbps Optical fiber ISP to Internet infrastructure
Smaller links within Internet infrastructureE-4 139.264 Mbps Optical fiber Carries 4 E3 channels
Up to 1,920 simultaneous voice conversationsOC-3/SDH 155.52 Mbps Optical fiber Large company backbone
Internet backboneE-5 565.148 Mbps Optical fiber Carries 4 E4 channels
Up to 7,680 simultaneous voice conversationsOC-12/STM-4 622.08 Mbps Optical fiber Internet backbone Gigabit Ethernet 1 Gbps Optical fiber (and "copper" up to 100 meters) Workstations/networks with 10/100 Mbps Ethernet plug into Gigabit Ethernet switches OC-24 1.244 Gbps Optical fiber Internet backbone SciNet 2.325 Gbps (15 OC-3 lines) Optical fiber Part of the vBNS backbone OC-48/STM-16 2.488 Gbps Optical fiber Internet backbone OC-192/STM-64 10 Gbps Optical fiber Backbone OC-256 13.271 Gbps Optical fiber Backbone
Backbone Transmission Speeds







