AARNet provides unmetered access to Akamai

Australia's academic research network (AARNet) has announced that it has unmetered access to traffic hosted on the Akamai content delivery network for its clients in the university and research sectors.

AARNet CEO Chris Hancock told iTnews today that it started unmetering Akamai services to its clients as of yesterday.

Hancock said these clients included universities, the CSIRO and all of AARNet's other clients which include the likes of NICTA and Questacon in Canberra.

Hancock said that over 70 percent of traffic on the AARNet network was peering traffic.

"We have got a lot of peering partners," he said. "We don't publicise all of our peering partners as it's the end-user services that are the value add."

Peering allows the research network to cut-down on international traffic, which comes at high costs to service providers in Australia.

Content hosted on Akamai represents around 5 percent of AARNet's total traffic, Hancock said.

The Akamai peering arrangement allows AARNet clients to access services such as the ABC's iView platform and Apple's iTunes without it counting towards their download quota.

Foxtel's recently announced download service also uses Akamai.

A list of the content Akamai distributes through its content distribution network is available on its website.

Hancock said the arrangement with Akamai would also improve network performance.