The Highball Project is a research effort designed to specify and ultimately build a fast, wide area network. It is designed to operate at gigabit speeds or higher, although nothing in the design specifies a particular speed. Connections between nodes are either multi-conductor cable or fiber optic, usually occurring in pairs, one cable or fiber for each direction.
Nodes are crossbar switches, capable of connecting any input to any or to many outputs.
The network is designed for high demand, bursty users. These users can individually demand a gigabit or more, but do so for brief, bursty periods. In contrast, conventional high speed networks are usually designed for highly multiplexed aggregates of low rate users. The statistics are very different for bursty users than for a multiplexed aggregate. A network designed for multiplexed, low rate users is ill-suited for bursty, high rate users.