in brief Australia's Research and Education Network (AARNet) today flicked the switch on its next-generation fibre telecommunications network.
Dubbed AARNet3, the network links universities and other institutions across the nation, providing extremely high levels of bandwidth (up to 10 gigabits per second) for intensive research applications, and expanding the level of service AARNet can provide to users of its existing network.
In total, AARNet3 will connect around one million end users in locations around much of the Australian mainland. Among other things, it will link South Australia's Partnership for
Advanced Computing research network to supercomputing centres in
eastern states.
A number of vendors were involved in building the network, including Juniper and Cisco. AARNet is also understood to use services from a variety of telcos, with the group's Web site listing Nextgen Networks in particular.
