SINGAPORE, 04 April 2013 – The National University of Singapore (NUS) -- in collaboration with NCS, a leading ICT provider, and Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking and communications -- has successfully implemented a flexible, scalable and high-speed wireless network across its Kent Ridge and Bukit Timah campuses in Singapore.

The wireless network across the NUS campuses will meet the growing mobility needs of its students and staff across two locations, as well as provide high levels of performance and scalability, while simplifying management.

NUS’ integrated approach towards providing pervasive wireless coverage for its students, staff and visitors includes the provision of free Wi-Fi on campus shuttle buses, participation in eduroam for Wi-Fi roaming with overseas institutions and extended coverage of the Wireless@SG network for campus visitors.

Creation of Largest Education Wireless Environment in Singapore

• NUS aims to enhance students' learning experience by transforming its campus into a dynamic instructional environment that empowers students, faculty, administrators, and staff to stay continuously connected to vital resources.
• NUS has deployed 3,200 wireless access points (WAPs) across its Kent Ridge and Bukit Timah campuses.
• This enhanced, highly secure and resilient wireless infrastructure will integrate with NUS’ existing network to provide centralized management and connectivity across devices.
• Intelligent wireless routing technology will help ensure maximum network availability and optimized network performance, including in outdoor areas. The access points, operating in wireless mesh modes, will dynamically learn the best way to route traffic in these situations.
• The wireless environment will allow network connections to laptops, smartphones, printers, cameras, interactive whiteboards and other devices, making campus resources more widely available and improving collaboration among students, faculty, administrators, and visitors such as guest lecturers.

Free Wi-Fi on Campus Shuttle Buses

• The wireless implementation will integrate with the current transportation system available to students and staff across the Kent Ridge and Bukit Timah campuses.
• Mobile wireless access points and 3G routers have been installed in 19 shuttle buses that traverse the campus grounds, providing intranet and Internet access on any device. This connectivity also enables NUS to monitor shuttle bus usage by tracking individual buses. Data collected could be used in a variety of ways, including providing real-time arrival estimates on display panels at bus stops and crowd-monitoring services for crowd control and diversion.

eduroam

• eduroam is a global roaming access service developed for the international research and education community. Driven by Singapore Advanced Research and Education Network (SingAREN) in Singapore, eduroam allows users from member institutions to tap on each other’s Wi-Fi networks with their home institution’s network ID and password.
• When visiting overseas institutions, NUS students and staff can use their NUSNET account to access the Wi-Fi network of a university (e.g., Duke, Harvard, Yale, King’s College London, University of Cambridge). NUSNET is the campus-wide network for NUS.
• Similarly, visitors from participating eduroam institutions can access NUSNET using the credentials from their home institution.

Wireless@SG Network Coverage

• Visitors to NUS can now enjoy extended coverage of the Wireless@SG network in NUS public areas for convenient access to the Internet.
• Wireless@SG is a programme developed by IDA for wireless broadband access in public areas in Singapore.

Benefits of Campus-wide Wireless Network

• The campus-wide wireless network enables NUS students to:
  • Download class notes for a lecture using the NUS wireless network;
  • Watch a video on NUS webcast channel, NUSCast, during their breaks;
  • Check bus arrival times using NUS NextBus mobile app;
  • Watch a video or surf the Internet, uninterrupted, while on the shuttle bus;
  • Share views and interact online on social media between classes 

Internet Traffic

• According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index 2011 – 2016 for Asia Pacific:
  • The Internet traffic in 2016 will be equivalent to 113 billion DVDs per year, 9 billion DVDs per month, or 13 million DVDs per hour.
  • 866 million smartphones and 86 million mobile-connected tablets are expected to connect to the Internet by 2016 with the average Internet user generating 27.6 gigabytes of Internet traffic per month by that time.
  • The same study shows that mobile data traffic will reach 4,322,879 terabytes (4.32 exabytes) per month in 2016, the equivalent of 1,081 million DVDs each month or 11,913 million text messages each second.

Quotes:

Tommy Hor, Senior Director, Computer Centre, NUS

“A seamless connectivity experience is a necessity for our faculty, staff and students. We will continue to enhance our infrastructure and leverage on the emerging technologies and expertise available today, to provide comprehensive IT support to meet the needs of our faculty, staff and students. As a premier and trusted IT partner in higher education, our mission is to spearhead the development of highly secure and high-performing infrastructure and services that will transform education. NCS and Cisco are two key partners in our continuing journey.”

Chia Wee Boon, Chief Executive Officer, NCS

“With the enhanced and seamless connections, students are able to access their learning resources even from remote corners across the campuses. Students need not concern themselves with connectivity issues and can have the full IT support they need for their learning and research needs. With the improved and highly secure infrastructure in place, innovative applications and services can be built within the environment, to provide an integrated and truly global educational experience.”

Joshua Soh, managing director for Singapore and Brunei at Cisco

“The Internet has changed the way we live, work, and most importantly, learn, expanding beyond the confines of the classroom into a boundless, connected learning environment.   Our collaboration with NCS transforms education in Singapore as we enable a connected NUS, where the dynamic networked environment creates a borderless institution, enabling effective, innovative pedagogical approaches and a collaborative learning platform for students and teachers.”

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About National University of Singapore

A leading global university centred in Asia, the National University of Singapore (NUS) is Singapore’s flagship university which offers a global approach to education and research, with a focus on Asian perspectives and expertise.

NUS has 16 faculties and schools across three campuses. Over 37,000 students from 100 countries enrich the community with their diverse social and cultural perspectives.

NUS has three Research Centres of Excellence (RCE) and 23 university-level research institutes and centres. NUS is also a part of Singapore’s 5th RCE, SCELSE. NUS shares a close affiliation with 16 national-level research institutes and centres. Research activities are strategic and robust, and NUS is well-known for its research strengths in engineering, life sciences and biomedicine, social sciences and natural sciences. It also strives to create a supportive and innovative environment to promote creative enterprise within its community.  

For more information, please visit www.nus.edu.sg

About NCS

NCS is a leading infocommunications technology (ICT) service provider and together with SingTel under Group Enterprise, we have a presence in over 20 countries located throughout APAC, Europe and the USA.

NCS delivers end-to-end ICT and communications engineering solutions to help governments and enterprises realise business value through the innovative use of technology. Our unique delivery capabilities range across consulting, development, systems integration, outsourcing, infrastructure management & solutions and portal management. We also provide mobility, social networking, business analytics and cloud computing services. For more information, please visit www.ncs.com.sg.

About Cisco 

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com. Cisco products are supplied in Singapore by the channel partners of Cisco Systems International B.V. and Cisco International Limited, each being a wholly owned subsidiary of Cisco Systems, Inc. 

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