The pipes are calling. Fat pipes that is.

A private internet network known as SABRENet set up more than a decade ago by three universities to connect researchers and enable them to send big files to each other was ahead of its time. Has one of the answers to the painful economic transition of South Australia been sitting there all along?

It is nirvana for digital start-ups because the internet speeds are at least 10 times faster than the national broadband network will be able to muster.

A previously private internet network with speeds at least 10 times faster than the NBN is a potential game-changer in Adelaide. Nic Walker

It is about to be revved up in a big way and by mid-2017 the SABRENet network will be fully connected to an extra 14 business precincts across Adelaide. They include the Techport site operated by submarine and warship builder ASC, where $50 billion-worth of submarines will be built under the much-vaunted project announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in early 2016 when French firm DCNS was awarded the contract. Techport is one of eight precincts out of the 14 which already have been stitched into the network.

The expansion of SABRENet is being fuelled by $5 million of extra spending by the South Australian government, led by Premier Jay Weatherill, to connect it to other business precincts which also include the Tonsley Technology Park. That once housed another manufacturing relic – the Mitsubishi car factory which shut down in 2008. The fatter pipes of the super-fast fibre optic network will be offered to businesses who want to take advantage of the faster speeds. But they will have to stump up extra to connect to it. It comes as the NBN continues to be an expensive political football as a complicated roll-out of its service drags on.