China turns on a vast experimental network it says is an heir to ARPANET

Chinese authorities on Thursday certified the China Environment for Network Innovation (CENI), a vast research network that Beijing hopes will propel the country to the forefront of networking research.

As reported in Chinese state media, tests of the network saw it shift 72 terabytes of data in 1.6 hours, across a distance of around 1,000 km between a radio telescope in Guizhou province and a university in Hubei. We think that’s almost 100 Gbit/s, an impressive feat for a sustained long-distance data transfer even if it took place in a controlled environment.

CENI took over a decade to build and now links 40 Chinese cities with over 55,000 kilometers of optic fiber. State media says it can support 128 heterogeneous networks and 4,096 parallel heterogeneous service tests.

China often lets its techies describe the nation’s technological triumphs at international conferences, and in November ...