As the demand for faster speeds has grown rapidly over recent decades, new communications networking equipment and systems are constantly being developed to accommodate these requirements . A result of these efforts is a series of established networking protocols and terminology that are used to identify various speed thresholds and the related equipment.
The chart below is intended as a quick reference guide to help readers associate the various networking speeds with their respective protocol/service names.
|
Max Throughput Speed |
Protocol / Service |
|
64 kbps |
DSO / Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) |
|
1.5 Mbps |
DS1 / T1 |
|
10 Mbps |
10Base-T Ethernet / RS-422 |
|
45 Mbps |
DS3 / T3 |
|
100 Mbps |
100Base-T Ethernet (Fast Ethernet) / FDDI |
|
155 Mbps |
OC-3 / STM-1 Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) / Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) |
|
200 Mbps |
ESCON (Enterprise Systems Connectivity) |
|
622 Mbps |
OC-12 / STM-4 |
|
1 Gbps |
Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel |
|
2 Gbps |
Fibre Channel |
|
2.5 Gbps |
OC-48 / STM-16 / OTU1 (Optical Transport Unit) |
|
4/8 Gbps |
Fibre Channel / Infiniband |
|
10 Gbps |
10G Ethernet / OC-192 / STM-64 / OTU2 / Fibre Channel (Serial and Parallel) |
|
16 Gbps |
Fibre Channel / Infiniband |
|
40/43 Gbps |
OC-768 / OTU3 |
|
100/112 Gbps |
100GE / OTU4 |
|
Various |
Video and proprietary protocols |
|
> 1 Tbps |
Wavelength Division Multiplex |