The Associated Press reported on October 10 that Internet 2—the federally-funded research network that is used by universities, research institutions and some companies—has been running at 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) since late August, and plans are in the works to bump speeds yet again in another 12 to 18 months, to 400 Gbps.

Internet 2 is run by a consortium of university partners, and managed by Level 3 Communications, the Colorado-based Internet backbone carrier.

The AP story notes that the 100 Gbps network allows Internet 2 participants to use a single, dedicated 10 Gbps channel for specific applications. The article mentions that physicists who want to acquire enormous datasets from the new Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research are likely to be among the early users of such channels.

A 10 Gbps channel can download 1 megabyte of data in 0.0008 seconds; a typical movie in uncompressed digital format could be downloaded in about 5 seconds.