NZ joins the super-speed club

By PAUL BRISLEN

New Zealand universities and research institutes are about to join an exclusive international club through the Government's commitment to the development of a super-high-speed internet link.

Running initially at up to 20,000 times faster than the typical home dial-up connection, the Advanced Network for Research and Education will link 127 universities, wananga, polytechnics and Crown Research Institutes to help research staff collaborate.

The network will consist of a series of exchanges, yet to be built, that will allow the research facilities to connect to national and international networks.

These exchanges, called "gigantic points of presence" or "GigaPOPs", are a series of highly sophisticated switches each capable of handling millions of connections a second.

Once the network is established, businesses will also be encouraged to take part, according to the chairman of the Next Generation Internet consortium, Neil James.

"That's the model that we're seeing overseas and I don't see why that wouldn't happen here as well."

The project will bring New Zealand research institutes into line with their overseas counterparts. Australian universities have been connected via a network called ARNet for some time and the US Government and universities have been working on Internet2 since 1997.

James says New Zealand is late to the game.

"It's never too late but we've certainly been dragging the chain on this."

The various worldwide projects are working at being able to transfer enormous amounts of traffic very quickly.

Applications for the service could include three-dimensional MRI scans of a patient being sent to a specialist in another country for immediate diagnosis or remote manipulation of medical equipment. According to the Ministry of Research Science and Technology's general manager for strategic development, Andrew Kibblewhite, "the sky's the limit".

"It would give us a remarkable ability to collaborate on research projects around the world. We're talking about things like real-time multi-party video conferencing, that sort of thing".

Minister of Research Science and Technology Pete Hodgson refused to be drawn on the overall cost, saying the tendering process was yet to be announced.

Hodgson said the project was not designed to duplicate existing network infrastructure.

"It wouldn't make a lot of sense to duplicate what's there today.

"The key thing to remember is that this requires the telecommunications companies altering their business models for how they rent out and sell their fibre optic space."

Telecom spokesman John Goulter said the company was keen to work with the project.

"Basically we think this is a good idea.

"Much of the infrastructure already exists, it's just a matter of configuring it."