The ATNF is developing a new generation of instrumentation for radio astronomy that makes increasing use of high-speed digitisers, and capitalises on access to long distance (hundreds of km), high-speed (> 1 Gbits/s) data paths. These developments benefit the science by enabling advanced signal processing in the new instrumentation, and by allowing real-time connections to be made between widely-spread radio telescopes. A specialist in high-speed data networking and management is now required by the ATNF given the volume of digital data generated and processed within astronomical instrumentation.