AUCKLAND, New Zealand - December 30, 2003 - Otago University is upgrading its Cisco Systems® communications network to 10gigabitper-second (Gbit/s) speeds to manage increasing bandwidth demand and to enable the deployment of Internet Protocol (IP) telephony, video and a wireless local-area network (WLAN).

As New Zealand's first university, founded in 1869, Otago has earned an international reputation for the quality of its research and teaching. Otago has a teaching facility in each of the four main cities of New Zealand: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. It employs more than 3,000 staff and provides a range of post-graduate and undergraduate courses for almost 19,000 students.

University director of Information Services, Martin Anderson, says; "This multiphase, three-year upgrade will provide a state-of-the-art network that will help the University to enhance its international reputation for excellence in research and teaching. The upgrade will benefit students, lecturers, researchers and administrators."

The upgrade will:

• Enable University network administrators to more efficiently manage increasing amounts of mission-critical information traveling across the University's wide-area network between its three main campuses at Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington;
• Improve the management of applications in Human Resources, payroll, student administration and library systems;
• Enable the University to provide multimedia e-learning content over a resilient IP-based network, improve connection speeds and allow broadband access to course materials for students in on-campus residences;
• Reduce operational costs by converging voice, video and data onto one IP network.

The network will also be capable of providing students and staff with high-speed wireless networking through the deployment of Cisco® Aironet® Series of IEEE 802.11b Wi-Fi access points.

Cisco New Zealand country manager, David Barker, says; "Cisco has had a strong data-management relationship with Otago University for several years. The decision to upgrade the University network will provide students and staff with unprecedented access to productivity-improving Internet technologies such as wireless networking. Logical CSI, our Cisco Gold Partner, is also a crucial player in designing and deploying the network."

The network upgrade is based on the deployment of Cisco Catalyst® 6513 switches at the core layer of the network, providing data throughput rates of up to 10 Gbit/s. These switches will be supported by the deployment of Cisco Catalyst 4507 switches and Cisco Catalyst 3550 Series switches at the distribution layer of the network. Cisco Catalyst 2950 Series switches are being deployed at the network access layer.

The entire project is being managed by Logical CSI. Phase one of the project will be completed by March 2004. "Logical CSI has been the University of Otago's network partner for over three years, and we are excited to be involved in the next phase of the upgrade of its LAN," Logical CSI's South Island manager, Murray Price, says.