Connecticut State University System
Bringing Higher Bandwidth to Higher Education
In recent years, Connecticut's public universities have seen a massive jump in the bandwidth required to serve its campuses. "Our administration, faculty and students actively push technology boundaries for applications relating to research, health care, education, science and engineering, and this predicated our need to increase network speed and capacity," says Bill Aust, Director of Telecommunications for the Connecticut State University System.
Quickly outpacing its current network, the challenge was exacerbated as Western Connecticut State University faced another dilemma. It's a single institution, but two campuses: Midtown and Westside, five miles apart. Two campuses that looked as though they'd need two completely separate telecom solutions.
"We had limited bandwidth," says Aust. "It was expensive at the time and it was getting to the point where we would have to install another OC-3 at each one of the sites to provide the bandwidth that was required by the students and staff."
Capitalizing On New Connections.
Fortunately, the telecom challenges of both campuses could be met with a single solution: a dark fiber network from Fibertech.
"There are residence halls and classroom buildings located on both campuses. So having a high-speed, dark fiber optic connection into each facility saves us from having to duplicate services on each campus," says Aust.
Just as important — and maybe more so, given the funding challenges faced by today's public universities there was also a major financial advantage that went beyond the technological advantages dark fiber provided: the ability to capitalize their Fibertech network as an asset. "From a budgeting standpoint, it's a big advantage," says Aust. "It's more effective for us to use bond funds to capitalize an investment, rather than using our operating funds."
Ready The Class of 2010 And Beyond.
With Fibertech's help, Aust and his team have Western Connecticut State better positioned to handle the growth of their bandwidth needs for years to come. "With the added buildings being built on our Westside campus, we were going to be in for some major expenditures to add the additional bandwidth with the old technology. With the fiber, it's become a non-issue because of the ease-of-use and adaptability of the network."
He added, "In essence, what we've done is extend our individual campus LAN capability to create an environment which overcomes our geographic challenges and effectively creates a single campus technology. We feel that this physical connectivity will have a positive impact on our educational and student life programs for decades to come."
Bottom line: Their Fibertech network has been a winner for the state, students and faculty at Western Connecticut State's two campuses. As Bill Aust says, "The key for us is we were able to save some operating dollars. The key for the end user is they're getting much better response time on the applications they're running."
"We were able to save some operating dollars… and our end user is getting much better response time."
Bill Aust, Director of Telecommunications, CSU System