Results are presented on a lateral current injection vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) structure, the implant apertured, index guided VCSEL (I-2-VCSEL). This approach was previously used for 980 nm emission and has now been adapted for 850 nm emission. The threshold current is as low as 0.8 mA for 7 mum diameter current apertures. Typical slope efficiencies of 0.45-0.5 mA/mW are obtained for output mirror reflectivity of 99.5%. Small-signal measurements of the modulation response indicate instrument-limited bandwidths in excess of 11 GHz. Large-signal measurements demonstrate 10 Gb/s operation with bit-error rates below 10(-13). In addition, high repetition rate pulses were generated by gain switching both single and multimode VCSELs. These Gaussian pulses had time bandwidth products below 2.5, pulse widths as low as 29.6 ps and timing jitter as low as 5.5 ps.