Education & Distance Learning Enthusiasts- New Orleans Schools Learn their Gig-E's

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New Orleans Schools Learn their Gig-E's

The Net Economy - March 11, 2002

The New Orleans public school system is jumping to the cutting edge of converged voice, video and data this week by announcing that it will roll out a robust Gig-E fiber-to-the-building network to its schools.

The school system will run its entire communications package of voice, Internet access, high-speed data and other services within the new system. The New Orleans system expects to serve 146 buildings, 10,000 faculty members and 76,000 students at a cost of $20 million.

The project has a three-year term.

In a novel twist, service will provided by a cable company, Cox Communications, through its Business Services unit. The network is considered the first of its kind for the company.

"This is a philosophical shift for us," says Michael Trahan, sales director at Cox Business Services. "The project did not report to local general managers. We pulled several different departments together at a central level to get this done."

The move by New Orleans public schools effectively takes the district off the incumbent's phone grid. For example, voice service will be trunked by the new network to a Nortel DMS 500 switch that Cox currently controls, for access to the public communications network, says Trahan.

In a chilling note for the incumbent, Cox estimates BellSouth will lose $2 million of revenue annually.

The network was funded at least partially by the $2.25 billion federal E-Rate fund for building connectivity in K-through-12 schools.

Cox provided the service with a minimal upgrade to its existing digital cable plant. It claims that only short fiber runs to some buildings were needed. The system is expected to run on its own separate fiber strands within the current plant and will not require tricky integration with Cox's legacy cable system.

The company used Gig-E, as opposed to ATM or other networking technologies, because of its high bandwidth. It plans to offer other advanced services, like distance learning, with the system.

The company says it plans to pursue other education, health care and government agencies. There is some speculation that other cable operators will follow suit with similar buildouts.

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