SABRENet turbo-charges South Australia<squote>s R&D sector

Sunday, December 04, 2005

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A 92-kilometre broadband network that carries terabytes* of data within minutes has commenced construction in Adelaide, South Australia.
The South Australian Broadband Research and Education Network (SABRENet) Ltd paves the way for the creation of more intellectual property for the State and greater contributions by South Australian researchers to global scientific projects.
West Australian networking firm Amcom (ASX:AMM) will build and manage the $7.3 million, 10 gigabit fibre optic network.
The ultra-high-speed dark fibre network will stretch the length and breadth of Adelaide, connecting space, medical, agricultural, photonics and a vast range of other research projects to the global science community.
The Australian Government Minister for Education, Science and Training Brendan Nelson has approved $6.55 million for the project, positioning South Australia as the first state to extend the Australian Research and Education Network (AREN) to all major research sites, campuses, teaching hospitals and technology precincts.
State Minister for Science and Information Economy Karlene Maywald welcomed todays announcement, SABRENet is a major investment in this States future capacity to innovate and to compete in the global marketplace for ideas, skills and know-how, she said.
Professor Chris Marlin, chair of the SA Consortium for Information Technology and Telecommunications, said that todays announcement is the result of nearly three years of intensive collaboration between the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia, Flinders University, the State Government and the Defence, Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO). SABRENet has also been supported by the State Governments Broadband Development Fund.
Major SABRENet routes will extend from the Adelaide CBD and reach north to Roseworthy, south to Flinders, east to Magill and west to Woodville. The Adelaide Innovation Constellation precincts of Waite, Thebarton, Mawson, Flinders and Florey, identified in the State Governments STI10 Science vision, will all be linked by the network.
SABRENet will cut the time to transfer a terabyte of data to just 17 minutes, compared to about three months using business broadband. Up till this year such large datasets, saved to portable hard disks, have been transported by plane or taxi between research institutions here and overseas.
The new network will enable supercomputer real-time simulations, multi-screen, high-definition videoconferencing, redundant storage and disaster recovery of massive amounts of data, and will allow South Australian researchers to participate in bandwidth-enabled experiments around the globe.
Minister Maywald said that a future goal will be to link SABRENet to TAFEs, schools and new entrants to the States growing Research & Education sector.
SABRENets interim Chair Paul Sherlock said that the network will be constructed over the next 12 months, and will come on line progressively as stages are completed.
SABRENet Ltd will own and manage the network on behalf of our members and for the
benefit of the entire Research & Education sector in South Australia he said.
* A terabyte is 1 trillion bytes.