I came across this little bit of info today that just completely boggles my mind. I knew it had to be high, but can you believe that AT&T's networks handle 16 petabytes worth of data every business day?

AT&T currently carries about 16 petabytes of total IP and data traffic on an average business day, the equivalent of a 2.5-megabyte music download for every man, woman and child on the planet.

Other interesting tidbits from this article published in late 2008:

The company's entire U.S. ultra-long haul network -- more than 80,000 fiber-optic wavelength miles -- now uses this 40-gigabit network technology, known as OC-768.

When I was designing fiber networks back in the early 2000's an OC192 was considered the 'top of the line' for fiber transport networks.

By 2018, IP traffic on the AT&T network is projected to be a staggering 5,600 percent greater than what it is today.

All in 140 character chunks I presume?

AT&T researchers, working with NEC Corporation of America and Corning Incorporated, recently completed a successful test of such technologies that demonstrated data transmission at 114 Gbps over each of 161 separate wavelength channels on a single optical fiber, transporting a total capacity of 17 Tbps over 622 kilometers.

Simply stunning.