Launching the network in Canberra, Science and education minister, Julie Bishop, said: "This high speed network will change fundamentally the way Australian scientists and researchers participate in global research initiatives and it will vastly expand our horizons for delivering innovative education programs and content."
CEO Chris Hancock said "we have been testing and building the network for some time but it is now virtually complete so we have launched it today."
AANet3 comprises a national 10Gbps backbone from Brisbane to Perth, over the Nextgen network with 10Gpbs links to the US west coast over Southern Cross and links to North and South Asia and onto Europe over the new TIEN2 network. "That gives us exposure to 30 million users and direct access to the GEANT2 network in Europe and allows us reach another nine countries in Asia," Hancock said. "For those users who need low latency it gives a shorter trip time than having to bounce the US west coast."
TEIN2 is only a two year project, but is likely to be followed by an even more advanced and larger network. Hancock said: "We are planning TIEN3 as we speak and we are participating because we want access to other countries such as India."
In preparation for AARNet3 AARNet last year moved away from volume-based charging for on-net users to a subscription model. Hancock said: "We believed volume-based charging was an impediment to making effective use the additional capacity on AARNet3...It really is important when groups are collaborating that it does not cost them the commodity rate."
He added: "The major priority for us now is to drive usage and secondly to start to push applications on that network. We are trialling access grids and multicasting and HDTV and we are really trying to be at the cutting edge of these technologies."
Bishop said: "Our challenge is to ensure that the capacity and the utilisation of this network is maximised and so we are working with schools and the vocational and educational training jurisdictions, to explore ways of extending the reach of AARNet3 to school children and those in vocational training. This will involve working very closely with the states and territories and educators to provide connections between their existing networks and with AARNet3, and this will provide superior access for teaching and learning resources that are just not available via the commodity internet."
AARNet3 promises new era in collaborative research
Australia's Academic and Research Network (AARNet) has formally launched the third generation of its network, linking a million and end users and delivering 1Gbps to 39 academic and research organisations.
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Stuart Corner
Tracking the telecoms industry since 1989, Stuart has been awarded Journalist Of The Year by the Australian Telecommunications Users Group (twice) and by the Service Providers Action Network. In 2010 he received the 'Kester' lifetime achievement award in the Consensus IT Writers Awards and was made a Lifetime Member of the Telecommunications Society of Australia. He was born in the UK, came to Australia in 1980 and has been here ever since.
