Faced with a main campus move in the middle of a busy academic year, Gateshead College needed to continue to provide its 700 staff, partners and over 13,000 students with full access to the best quality learning and working environments while migrating to a new, higher performance network. To ensure a seamless transition with no loss of connectivity, Gateshead College selected 3Com to provide a new high performance converged network across all four College sites.
Installation of 1,500 network devices took place within just two weeks - without a single minute of downtime. The converged network now provides Gateshead College with a cost-effective solution for its current and future data, voice, video and other business-critical services. Robert Cooper, ICT Manager at Gateshead College, says. “Thanks to 3Com, there were astonishingly few issues. The move was seamless and we could literally just plug-and-go.”
The project was a huge undertaking, featuring a fibre-based network core with 70 network switches and 20 wireless access points. “We needed to be able to power technology such as CCTV and IP phones, and provide wireless access points in the new building,” says Robert Cooper. “We now have a future-proof IP-based network across all four sites, offering us reliability, stability, increased speed and enhanced capabilities. Because it is fully VoIP-enabled we can now run our multi-campus video screens over the network. And our additional 3Com wireless network capabilities mean we can offer ‘safe’ network access to staff, students and visitors without any security concerns.”
Gary Newbold, 3Com UK Country Manager, says, “More and more organisations like Gateshead College are recognizing that they no longer have to pay a premium for high-performance core and edge network infrastructure solutions. They deserve high-quality solutions and ultra-responsive support at a lower price point, particularly in today’s economic environment.”
3Com implemented the solution with 3Com Gold Education Supplier partner SwitchShop.