cities from Cairns to Perth as well as branch lines to Darwin, Hobart and several other locations. Because optical fibre repair times are long, the backbone network follows two physically diverse paths. As at late 2013, capacity on each leg of the routed network was between 10 and 100 gigabit per second (Gbit/s). Starting with only 48 kbit/s national backbone capacity in 1990, this reflects a similarly rapid exponential growth rate as for AARNet's international capacity. The Network peers with external content providers and ISPs to increase performance and availability of the network. The organisation has a selective peering policy for peering with other providers. This policy applies to all requests for settlement-free interconnection with AARNet, either via dedicated connections or traffic via public internet exchanges. AARNet provides the Internet to several million end-user devices at Australian universities, CSIRO, various other research and educational institutions, and some hospitals. Customer site connections are mostly at 1 to 10 Gbit/s rates, with most end-user Ethernet services at 1 Gbit/s, and Eduroam services at available Wi-Fi performance levels. AARNet's layer 3 services are usually delivered at the AARNet PoP sites. With the introduction of the AARNet3 optical fibre network (i.e. from 2006 onwards) AARNet progressively developed capability to extend services to customer sites in some locations, as well as providing layer 1 and layer 2 inter-campus connections in those areas. Prior to that, and at other locations, it is end-customer institutions' responsibility to extend services to site and to provision their own inter-campus network links. These are either operated directly by AARNet such as in Queensland or provided by companion networks such as SABRENet in South Australia and VERNet in Victoria. Summary of AARNet national IP network performance levels as at 2013: National backbone links: mostly 10 to 100 Gbit/s Customer site connections: mostly 1 to 10 Gbit/s End-user services: mostly 1 Gbit/s Ethernet and available Wi-Fi rates Continues to sustain traffic growth rates of '''50% per annum year on year over the preceding decade International connectivity AARNet provides the Australian component of the global advanced Research and Education Internet network. AARNet has high capacity interconnections with North American (Internet2), European (GÉANT) and Asian (TEIN3) components of the global network. As at late 2014, AARNet operated a total capacity of 120 Gbit/s to North America and a further 5 Gbit/s to Asia. This equates to a 2.2 million-fold increase over AARNet's initial trans-Pacific