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Adelaide Defence and Research Communications Commence Globalisation

Adelaide, the Australian home of Star Wars, Halliburton, Global Hawk and the Joint Strike Fighter Project, has begun building a global-standard data transfer system that will allow local activities to be co-ordinated internationally.

Today's Adelaide Advertiser announces the commencement and construction of a major fibreoptic network, connencting defence, science and educational facilities at speeds enabling synchronisation with global projects.

[excerpt] 

SABRENet will cut the time to transfer a terabyte of data to just 17 minutes, compared with about three months using business broadband.

A terabyte is 1 trillion bytes.

Until now 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 video conferencing, 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.

The project is the result of almost three years of collaboration between the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia, Flinders University, the State Government and the Defence, Science and Technology Organisation.

It is not known whether the U.S. Surveillance base at Pine Gap will be connected to the network.

Surveillance & SABRENet

I would be a very naïve person indeed if I thought that Pine Gap and any US intelligence gathering hardware was not connected to SABRENet. In fact, I have a feeling it is the raison d’être for its very existence.

Then again. I am naïve and believe in Mickey Mouse, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. I also think George Bush is a kind President spreading good will and democracy throughout the world !
 

Labor broadband

In 'Labor proposes rival broadband' by Tony Boyd in Financial Review ($2.50) Nov 22:
The federal opposition is willing to invest government funds in a privately run joint venture to build a national fibre-optic network that would deliver high-speed broadband in competition with Telstra.

Labor communications spokesman Stephen Conroy said the proposed joint venture would offer broadband speeds of up to 10megabits per second - about 40 times faster than the download speeds offered in basic broadband packages sold by Telstra.

The proposal, part of a broader package of infrastructure investment promises to be released by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley tomorrow, comes a week after Telstra said it would build a fibre-optic network in five capital cities if it was given a holiday from regulatory access. ...

 

Maybe Mr Beazley will reveal more.

I was wrong about SABRENET

I was wrong about SABRENET being the link to Pine Gap.. I have it on extremely good advice that the U.S. paid for a fibreoptic cable to be installed from Pine Gap to Adelaide's Flinders St Exchange and from there on to Sydney well over five years ago.

 What I'm guessing will be able to occur with the implementation of SABRENET is a high-speed two-way data flow between Pine Gap, and the DSTO in Adelaide.

Who can say?