I know this is very old but i found it quite interesting. (as i'm trying to educate myself on VCSELs)

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/07/the-future-of-electronics-is-frickin-hybrid-silicon-lasers/

"The bandwidth can be scaled by increasing the number of lasers operating at distinct wavelengths, or by increasing the encoding speed. By bumping the number of channels to 25 and the encoding rate to 40Gbps, speeds of 1Tbps are possible. Intel believes this could be pushed even further, but to give you an idea of what kind of data you can shuffle around at these speeds, consider this: at 50Gbps, in less than one second you could transfer an entire HD feature length film; at 1Tbps, you could move as many as three whole seasons of Law & Order. At that speed, you could download the entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in under two minutes."

Kinda puts the speed in perspective.

GLTA