WELLINGTON, New Zealand - March 2, 2004 -The Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand (CAA) has selected a converged voice and data network from Cisco Systems® to reduce operating costs and expand network capacity in a secure environment.

The Cisco® network will help the CAA to meet increasing user bandwidth demands and manage integrated voice and data over a single Internet Protocol (IP) network. The network will also provide unified messaging and voice over a wireless local-area network (WLAN) at the CAA's new offices in Petone, Wellington.

The Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand is responsible for establishing, monitoring and maintaining safety and security standards for New Zealand civil aviation. The provision of networking communications is of paramount importance to the CAA, which oversees the carriage of more than 4.5 million passengers on New Zealand's domestic routes and more than 2.5 million passengers arriving on international air carriers each year.

William Neal, manager, Information Communications Technology for Civil Aviation Authority said; "When CAA recently moved its offices to a new location in Petone, we decided that we could not continue with existing PBX technology that could soon become obsolete. Instead, we selected a converged voice and data network from Cisco, and Datacraft, one of the region's leading network services and support organizations."

To migrate voice onto the network, Datacraft helped CAA to upgrade its existing Cisco data network to Cisco Catalyst® 4500 and Catalyst 3550 series switches, and Cisco access and gateway routers. More than 180 CAA staff will be able to use the Cisco IP Phone 7960s, reducing network maintenance costs and providing users with advanced applications such as directory and other services.

Data performance was significantly improved with the upgrade to throughput rates of up to 1 gigabit per second to meet increasing user demand.

David Barker, Cisco country manager, New Zealand, said; "New Zealand businesses have been leaders in the adoption of IP technologies for more than a decade. Cisco understands that the Civil Aviation Authority demands high levels of quality communications and we have worked with Datacraft to deliver a cost-efficient solution which will help ensure that CAA can manage growing bandwidth demand."

The new infrastructure will help to increase CAA staff productivity, particularly through the extension of the network with WLAN technology at the Petone office. The WLAN allows data and voice to be transmitted at speeds of up to 11 Megabits per second (Mbps) specified by the 802.11b standard from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). The secure WLAN is based on the deployment of Cisco Aironet® 1200 Series access points at the Petone office.

The WLAN will also allow CAA Information Technology staff to use Cisco Wireless IP Phone 7920s for voice communications within the Petone office. The 7920 phone operates over the CAA's IP network infrastructure with Cisco Aironet Family IEEE 802.11b-compliant wireless access points.

Jeff Calton, senior account manager for Datacraft NZ, said; "Datacraft has worked closely with CAA and Cisco to help design and deploy the network to help ensure CAA received maximum benefit in the areas of productivity gains, reduction in ongoing costs as well as support and service."