3. Network

The Network chapter examines how the community runs and operates its infrastructure: the operations model, the ownership of backbone fibre, the bandwidth delivered to user institutions, and the share of eligible institutions actually reached. Tracking Operations and Maintenance models across the three survey waves reveals a clear pattern: NRENs are moving away from fully-outsourced arrangements toward in-house or hybrid models, signalling growing technical maturity across the community.

Network Operations: Fully Self-managed has held steady as the dominant model (around 10 NRENs in 2025), with Hybrid arrangements close behind. The most striking shift is the collapse of Fully Outsourced operations — five NRENs in 2018 down to just KOREN by 2025. DrukREN, HARNET and IDREN all moved away from outsourcing between 2018 and 2020; ThaiREN moved from Self to Hybrid in the same window. REANNZ moved from Hybrid to Self by 2025.

Network Maintenance: Hybrid is the overwhelmingly dominant model (11 NRENs in 2025), reflecting the practical reality that maintenance often involves third-party fibre, equipment, or service contracts even when day-to-day operations are managed in-house. Fully Self-managed maintenance is growing (3 → 6), with BdREN and MYREN transitioning into the category. Only HARNET and ThaiREN remain in Fully Outsourced for maintenance.

On fibre ownership, the community is in clear transition. Short-Term Lease (STL) — the dominant model in 2018 — has collapsed sharply by 2025, with Blended ownership (mixing short-term lease, long-term lease, and small self-owned segments) emerging as the most common arrangement. The two charts below trace this evolution separately for backbone fibre and access fibre.

Backbone fibre: STL dropped from 12 NRENs in 2018 to just 5 by 2025, while Blended grew from 1 to 7 — the most visible structural shift in the chapter. DrukREN moved to Self-Owned in 2020 and has held it. CERNET, BdREN, IDREN, ThaiREN, PREGINET, CamREN and ErdemNET have all converged on Blended models.

Access fibre: a parallel pattern. STL fell from 12 NRENs to 5 across the period; Blended grew from 2 to 7. CERNET and ErdemNET went straight to Blended on their first reporting in 2020; BdREN, CamREN, DrukREN, PREGINET and ThaiREN all converged on Blended after starting elsewhere. KOREN moved to LTL on both backbone and access.

3.1 Bandwidth and Reach

The highest bandwidth delivered to a connected institution is a useful indicator of an NREN's technical frontier. Three NRENs — REANNZ, SingAREN and ThaiREN — now reach 100 Gbps; CERNET and MAFFIN reach 40 Gbps; and KOREN and MYREN operate at 10 Gbps. A meaningful tail then spreads from 100 Mbps up to 5 Gbps, reflecting the community's range.

With all three waves overlaid, the slope chart reveals not just the magnitude of bandwidth growth but its timing. ThaiREN's jump to 100 Gbps came between 2020 and 2025 — late in the period — whereas MYREN's 5× jump (2 → 10 Gbps) happened earlier, between 2018 and 2020. HARNET and LEARN both spiked to 10 Gbps in 2020 before settling back, suggesting these may have been one-off circuit configurations rather than sustained capacity. A core group (SingAREN, CERNET, KOREN, DrukREN, ErdemNET, PREGINET) shows no change across waves, anchoring the community at their respective tiers. ErdemNET and PREGINET enter the chart at 2020, having not reported in 2018.

3.2 Interface Capacity Distribution

Beyond the headline 'highest bandwidth' figure, the survey records how each NREN's connected institutions are distributed across capacity tiers — from below 100 Mbps up to 100 Gbps. This lens reveals the deployed reality of the community: while leading NRENs reach 100 Gbps at their technical frontier, most institutions across most NRENs are connected at 1 Gbps or below. The five figures below break the 2025 distribution down by user category, showing for each NREN what share of its institutions sit at 1 Gbps or above — a useful proxy for network modernisation. Across the community, roughly 2,250 new institutional interfaces appeared between 2020 and 2025 (+17%), but the most striking shift was concentrated at the 10G and 100G tiers — a story the section closes with through a community-wide synthesis table and an invitation to three leading NRENs in that upper-tier growth.

Observation. CERNET dominates the community total with 2,312 connected universities — roughly 74% of all university interfaces in 2025. The distribution within CERNET is heavily weighted to the lower tiers (576 at <100M, 1,360 at 100M) reflecting the breadth of the Chinese academic network. Beyond CERNET, PERN leads with 260 universities (with a strong upper-tier mix: 160 at 1G, 50 at 10G, 10 at 100G). ThaiREN reports a notably high-tier portfolio with 24 universities at 100G. REANNZ shows a balanced 8/8/8 distribution at 1G/10G/100G. Across the community, 48 universities are connected at 100G — concentrated in PERN, REANNZ, ThaiREN, KOREN, PREGINET, SingAREN, and CERNET.

Observation. DrukREN reports the largest single-NREN footprint with 40 research institutes — all on 1G. CERNET (15) and KOREN (14) follow, with KOREN spanning the upper tiers (5/7/2 at 1G/10G/100G). ThaiREN's 10 research institutes are all at 10G or 100G. REANNZ shows a balanced 3/3/3 distribution at 1G/10G/100G — proportionally the most high-tier deployment in this sector. Community-wide, 9 research institutes are connected at 100G, signalling demand for high-bandwidth research applications.

Observation. ThaiREN's 10,359 schools dominate the community total (~89% of all reporting), all connected at 1G. DrukREN follows with 241 schools (all at 1G), CERNET with 160 (45 at <100M, 85 at 100M, 30 at 1G), and MYREN with 116 (103 at 100M, 13 at 1G). BdREN newly connected 64 schools (60 at <100M, 4 at 1G). With the exception of one SingAREN connection at 10G, all school interfaces in 2025 remain at 1G or below — confirming that school connectivity is overwhelmingly an access-tier concern.

Observation. PREGINET leads government connectivity with 125 institutions (120 at 1G plus 5 at 10G). CERNET (105) and KOREN (22) follow, with KOREN spanning into the upper tiers (12/9/1 at 1G/10G/100G). REANNZ is notable for its 5/5/5 distribution at 1G/10G/100G — the leading provider of 100G connectivity to government organisations, with KOREN adding one more. Community-wide totals reach 295 government interfaces in 2025, with 6 at 100G.

Observation. The "Others" category (non-academic special interest connections — hospitals, libraries, museums, cultural institutions, etc.) totals 459 connections in 2025. ThaiREN leads with 165 institutions on 1G, followed by PERN with 125 (also on 1G), then REANNZ at 58 (29 at 1G, 29 at 10G) and KOREN at 39 (22 at 1G, 17 at 10G). DrukREN connects 28 such institutions at 1G. The 53 connections at 10G across the community — split mainly between REANNZ, KOREN, and LERNet — represent meaningful infrastructure committed to non-academic civic users.

Synthesis: pulling all five sectors together gives the community-wide view of how the bandwidth distribution shifted between the 2020 and 2025 waves.

Table 3.6. Community-wide interface capacity distribution, 2020 vs 2025 (across all sectors and all reporting NRENs).

Observation. The community is climbing the bandwidth ladder where it matters most — at the upper tiers. Connections at 100 Gbps grew from just 2 in 2020 to 63 in 2025 (a 31× expansion), and 10G interfaces nearly quadrupled (85 → 333). The dominant 1G tier grew only modestly (+8%), and the lower tiers expanded steadily but unspectacularly. Overall the community added 2,250 new institutional interfaces (+17%), and the composition of that mix tilted upward.

3.3 Market Share

University market share — the proportion of eligible universities actually connected to the NREN — varies enormously across the cohort. The combo chart below sets the absolute scale of each NREN's addressable market alongside the deployed reach, and the slope chart that follows traces the 2020 → 2025 progression. DrukREN and REANNZ report full national coverage; PERN, ThaiREN, CERNET, SingAREN, MYREN and LEARN exceed half; others — notably IDREN with 4,000 universities in its market, and PREGINET with 500 — operate in very large addressable markets where roll-out is still under way.