Shadow Internet That’s 100 Times Faster Than Google Fiber

This article has no value. Use of "Shadow Internet" term solely to increase the buzz. They are talking about ESNet (Energy Science Network), consisting of a very few end-points connected together. Comparing it to Tier 3 network is nonsense, that is like saying Tier 1 blows Tier 3 network out of the water.

The monitoring tool provided by ESNet [1] displays around 25 users, and the topping users are not even exceeding the 10 gbit mark, theoretically they would have same experience with Google Fibre as well.

[1] - http://stats1.es.net/top.html

"Shadow Internet" is misleading. ESnet, along with many others, is simply a "private network" that differs from the long-haul wide area networks most of us are accustomed to (as it makes use of "dedicated" fibers instead of riding on top of existing networks).

There are several other networks like ESnet, such as the National Lambda Rail, FutureGrid, GENI, and Internet2. The Global Research NOC at Indiana University manages many of these networks and several (if not the majority) make use of existing unused dark fiber that Level3 has in the ground.

Isn't this fundamentally similar (as an idea an purpose, not an implementation) to the Internet 2 effort, which started in the mid-nineties if I recall correctly?

91 gigabits per second? How do you handle that rate at the receiving party? You'd need a handful of RAM laying around so to not bottleneck the connection