T-1, T-3, OC-3

A T-1 line is 24 telephone channels of 64Kb each. A T-3 is 672 channels or 28 T1's. You'll also see a T-1 referred to as DS1, and T-3's as DS3. A T-1 is about 1.54 Mbps, a T-3 about 43 Mbps.

Above that, we get into OC (Optical Carrier) territory:

OC-1 = 51.85  Mbps
OC-3 = 155.52 Mbps
OC-12 = 622.08 Mbps
OC-24 = 1.244  Gbps
OC-48 = 2.488 Gbps
OC-192 = 9.952 Gbps
OC-255 = 13.21 Gbps
 

There is faster stuff coming. At http://www.informationweek.com/news/21100224 , Cisco talks about a 92 Terabit per second router:

"I'm not talking about an evolution of existing routing," CEO John
Chambers told a packed auditorium at the Computer Science Museum
in Mountain View, Calif. "I'm talking about a whole new generation."
Chambers said the new technology--which the company touts as capable
of scaling to process up to 92 terabits per second of video, voice,
and data traffic, sufficient to transfer the entire contents of
the Library of Congress in less than 5 seconds--features 100 times
the capacity and four times the speed of Cisco's existing router
offerings. The CRS-1 is designed to have a shelf life of up to 20
years, supported by in-service hardware and software upgrades.
 

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