T1 Connection

You aren't missing anything. You are correct, NICs are faster, and are getting faster still. This is mainly due to the fact that the vast majority of network traffic traverses an internal network. Therefore it makes sense to make NICs talk as possible over a given length of cable.

Speed is greatly determined by distance between nodes, because signal strength decreases with distance. That is why the above mentioned speeds for a NIC are only good over a distance of 100 meters (using standard copper ethernet cable).

NO ONE would ever be able to afford Inernet access if the companies that maintain the Internet's infrastructure (backbone) were to install and maintain repeaters/amplifiers every 100 meters end-to-end.

Unless you are at a true backbone internet connection, your Network cards do indeed transfer data faster than your internet connection.

That said, your data will only transfer as fast as the slowest link in the line. Data can also be slowed by more data traffic than a given link can handle.

So, on your network can transer files at either 10 or 100 Mbps, but your internet connection is limited to 1.54 Mbps

Chas