The benefits of SURFlightpaths

1. High capacity - SURFnet provides dynamic lightpaths with 1 Gbit/s and fixed lightpaths from 150 Mbit/s, 600 Mbit/s, 1 Gbit/s, and 10Gbit/s.

2. High quality – Data is transferred directly to its final destination uninterrupted by other traffic, meaning that the stream of data has a high level of stability.
 
3. High security – The security problems on the shared Internet do not occur with lightpaths because it is virtually impossible to listen in or hack in to a lightpath from outside.

4. High availability – Due to the redundant or protected construction of lightpaths.

5. Expandable internationally – Lightpaths do not need to stop at a country’s borders or at the limits of SURFnet. There is a growing international network of lightpaths, with SURFnet’s NetherLight node in Amsterdam playing a key role.

6. Transparency – A lightpath is basically independent of the protocols used on it (framing). At the moment, framing of lightpaths is based mainly on Ethernet, but other protocols are also possible.

Additional benefits of dynamic lightpaths:
7. Multiple destinations – A dynamic lightpath can basically be set up just as easily as a telephone connection. This means that dynamic lightpaths can be utilised for applications that temporarily require a fast and/or reliable temporary connection and/or a connection between multiple locations.
 
8. Programmable – Applications can be developed that can be linked to this application so as to allow fully automatic use of dynamic lightpaths without any further human interaction being required.