Durham college betters campus life with wireless

Durham's New College has rolled out a wireless and converged IP network which it claims has improved student and staff services and significantly reduced IT costs.

The IP network was originally installed in 2005 after the college moved to a new site and campus-wide wi-fi was rolled out around six months ago.

Ian Walton, New College's director of finance and corporate services, said the convergence of voice, data and CCTV onto a single network - carried out by networking company Telindus - was a complete leap forward in technology for the college.

The 'mixed economy' college - which caters for further education (post-16) and higher education (18 plus) - is the biggest provider of higher education in County Durham with around 16,000 enrolments.

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Alan Race, assistant director in ICT for the college, told silicon.com that rolling out the converged IP network - which runs all communications services - puts New College "well ahead of other FE colleges".

The network is improving students' experience in a variety of ways including allowing them to record lectures so they can be watched later and improving campus security through a more extensive CCTV network.

Race said: "The IP network is our critical network in the college. It's allowed our staff to think of more innovative ways of teaching."

For staff, the wireless network has allowed them to roam the campus freely as they can access phone messages and emails remotely over the wireless network.

For college administrators, the network allows student assessment and attendance to be managed online.

The college has already saved around £150,000 with the new IP network, as it requires less cabling, maintenance and PC management than the previous network. And the fact the CCTV camera and telephony systems can now be managed over the IP network has contributed a further £40,000 in savings.

Now the IP and wireless networks have been rolled out, the college has ambitions to use the technology a variety of other ways.

By October the college hopes to roll out an IPTV service across the network which will allow live lectures to be viewed anywhere in world, for example.

Another future plan is for staff to be able to use FMC-style phones to access the VoIP network wirelessly when on campus. Race said: "We're looking to be one of the first institutions to offer mobile convergence."