The completion of an upgrade to the Southern Cross Cable Network has boosted AARNet's Australia-US connectivity from 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps.

CEO Chris Hancock has cited radio astronomy, climate modelling and high energy physics as examples of the kind of science applications that continue putting pressure on this country's research connections to the outside world. The best that's been achieved on single streams on the current network are speeds of 7 Gbps.

The higher speeds have become available with the completion of installs of new kit on the northern path of the SXTransPORT fibre between Australia and North America. As previously, international network access is provided on an unmetered basis.

Apart from its domestic mission to establish fibre connections between all Australian universities (it should be noted that a number of remote campuses still have to rely on DSL or mobile services), AARNet is also responsible for the international educational links.

While giant particle accelerators might be in short supply in Australia, this country is a participant in the LHC, demanding that its huge data sets be transferred to local institutions like the University of Melbourne.

AARNet also announced that its link from Perth to the Murchison Widefield Array and Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope sites in Western Australia has been upgraded to 100 Gbps to cope with the data deluge that the facilities will produce.

By the end of the year, SCCN's southern loop will also be upgraded to 40 Gbps. ®