Before everyone gets Godzilla bandwidth, the backbone pipes have gotta be able to fit Mothra and the rest of the crew in the system to prevent backups and bottlenecks. So AT&T's plumped their backbone up with a new 40Gbps (OC-768) network on 50,000 of its wavelength miles, making it the first provider to carry traffic coast-to-coast on 40-gigabit connections.

(The current generation of backbone connections sits pretty at about 10 gigabits.) By year's end, 40 percent of IP traffic on AT&T's backbone will ride on this new hotness. Translation: Fatter pipes on the backend mean you should see smoother performance as stuff surfs to your frontend, or at least less laggy bumpiness as traffic in the tubes keeps exploding. Subtext: I want fiber so I can, uh, better appreciate it. [AT&T]

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