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14 May 2005

New Zealand's Advanced Network

Dr Helen Anderson, CEO, MoRST, on National Radio

National Radio’s "Digital Life" programme, Saturday 14 May 2005 at 1.07pm
Summary of Interview by Simon Morton

Dr Helen Anderson recalled the origin of the idea of an advanced network for New Zealand came from the head of the US National Science Foundation who visited as a guest of the NZ government. She commented that NZ was missing a critical part of its infrastructure – a high-band really fast network connecting research facilities.

Dr Anderson explained that the network would be used by researchers in their everyday work, allowing them to download a lot of data quickly and share information with the rest of the world. As an example of speed, she said 10 gigabytes of data currently took 22 hours but with AN would take about 13 minutes. It would be of particular value for very new sciences, such as health sciences where video and audio could be downloaded quickly.

She acknowledged the role of NGI-NZ in stepping up to central government agencies and pointing out the need for an advanced network.

Dr Anderson pointed out that use will be limited to research and education establishments but expresses belief that commercially available networks of similar bandwidth will follow.

She said discussions currently going on regarding the commercial details of the project but that the first part of the project, starting with Auckland and connection to the rest of the world, was expected to be in place by the end of the calendar year. It was anticipated the connection for the rest of the country would quickly follow.