Case Studies
Wireless WAN Case Study
EXCELLENCE CLUSTER
BASED IN THE NORTH WEST
SIZE OF ORGANISATION: 18 Schools
NUMBER OF SITES: Eighteen
LENGTH OF PROJECT: 3 Years
CLIENT'S REQUIREMENTS
Rapid Technologies were requested to:
- design, supply and install a broadband WAN to link together 18 schools across the Cluster.
- provide a link to the main LEA core network.
- supply and install a Video Conferencing solution to facilitate lessons between schools and allow resource sharing within the Cluster.
- supply and configure an intranet with digital video content.
The Client favoured a school owned solution, not a leased solution in order to control future IT and Communications budgets.
ISSUES RAISED
Line of sight was required between all sites. This was not available due to land and tree line obstructions. This issue was resolved by the use of high buildings as relay sites.
SOLUTION PROVIDED
Rapid Technologies:
- supplied and installed 34Mbps licensed broadband radio links to all secondary schools within the Cluster.
- linked all primary schools and community centres within the Cluster using high capacity 5.8GHz point to multi point links.
- linked the core of the WAN into the LEA communications centre using a licensed 100Mbps Radio link.
- supplied and installed an intranet-hosting server together with firewall security at each exposed location.
- supplied and installed a content cache box locally to each site to cache Media on Demand digital video library content.
- supplied and installed Polycom VSX7000 Video Conferencing units across the WAN partners to allow cross-school collaboration.
- provided an on-site WAN manager to develop and manage the WAN infrastructure for the duration of the three year contract.
