Many mobile-phone companies already handle small charges with per-second billing for phone calls.

ECONOMIST: Letters | The

That machine routinely processes 70, 000 orders, cancellations and trades per second but can handle up to 250, 000 per second--enough to deal with trades on the Nasdaq plus the London and Paris stock exchanges with room to spare.

FORBES: About Robert Greifeld

The Java-2 based application server could handle as many as one billion hits per day when only Java-basedbrowsers were accessing the server.

CNN: Sun unveils app server strategy

The cable networks upgraded with fibre can run at speeds in the hundreds of megabits per second, enough to handle most present-day applications and many in the immediate future, like high-definition video.

ECONOMIST: Broadband in America

Each chip contains a number of channels - IBM would not specify the number - that can each handle light-encoded data at speeds of up to 25 gigabits per second (Gbps).

BBC: IBM chip aims to use light to speed up internet services

"The government is talking about 15, 000 cases per week, " said Ray Hale of the Cambridge crematorium, which can handle about 200-250 cases a week.

CNN: France supports slaughter of British cattle if necessary