Alcatel and Fiberworks Team Delivers Gigabit-Speed Fiber Optic Network to Whiteville City School District.Business Editors CALABASAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 3, 2000 MAN Connects School District and Offers High-Performance Voice-over-IP, Video-on-Demand, Distance Learning, Internet Access See how to access the Internet. and LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. Interconnect Services Alcatel today announced that its OmniCore 5000 switching platform was chosen to power a fiber-based Gigabit Ethernet An Ethernet standard that transmits at 1 Gbps. Used mostly to connect high-end workstations and servers as well as for network backbones, Gigabit Ethernet transmits full duplex from point to point using switches and half duplex in a shared environment (CSMA/CD) using a hub. educational metropolitan area network (E-MAN E-MAN Everything Man (Jimmy Castor, music artist) E-MAN Educational-Metropolitan Area Network (Spokane, WA) ) for the Whiteville City Schools in Whiteville, N.C. This initial installation networks four remote schools and the administration building. The E-MAN serves 3,100 students and staff throughout the network. Supplying the wire-speed routing and packet switching A network technology that breaks up a message into small packets for transmission. Unlike circuit switching, which requires the establishment of a dedicated point-to-point connection, each packet in a packet-switched network contains a destination address. necessary for high bandwidth applications of today and tomorrow, the E-MAN provides the school district with the scalable backbone necessary for high-speed Internet See broadband. access, local area network (LAN) interconnect services, and future voice-over-IP, video-on-demand, and distance learning applications. The Whiteville City Schools turned to Fiberworks, Inc., a full service IT solutions company headquartered in Lawrenceville, Ga., as the primary integrator for the solution. In developing the network, Fiberworks chose Alcatel's award-winning OmniCore 5000 family of routing switches See layer 3 switch. to provide the networking infrastructure for the E-MAN network. &uot;Our E-MAN enables students, teachers and parents to access a wealth of information and brings a new level of advanced teaching methods to our school systems,&uot; said Patricia Medlin, director of technology, Whiteville City Schools. &uot;The huge bandwidth provided by the fiber network, coupled by the wire-speed routing of the Alcatel OmniCore 5000 family of routing switches provides us with the platform to cost-effectively grow as our school district embraces new multimedia technologies.&uot; The E-MAN project was motivated by a collective need to provide networking capabilities to the district while simultaneously reducing long-term recurring re·cur intr.v. re·curred, re·cur·ring, re·curs 1. To happen, come up, or show up again or repeatedly. 2. To return to one's attention or memory. 3. To return in thought or discourse. costs. Integrating voice, video and data communications data communications, application of telecommunications technology to the problem of transmitting data, especially to, from, or between computers. In popular usage, it is said that data communications make it possible for one computer to "talk" with another. over a privately owned fiber infrastructure eliminated the huge expense for leased lines A private communications channel leased from a common carrier. Most digital lines require four wires (two pairs) for full-duplex transmission. (communications, networking) leased line . The Whiteville E-MAN is expected to pay for itself in three years and will continue to provide ample bandwidth for any new applications that come along. With the Fiberworks network powered by Alcatel routing switches, Whiteville students and teachers are now able to access educational resources, interact with other students and teachers, and enjoy the benefits of high-speed network connectivity. By virtue of a high-speed dedicated connection to the Internet, Whiteville City Schools is preparing for interaction through full-motion video Video transmission that changes the image 30 frames per second (30 fps). Motion pictures are run at 24 fps, which is the minimum frequency required to eliminate the perception of moving frames and make the images appear visually fluid to the eye. and full-duplex audio with any other school in the world, opening a new frontier New Frontier President John F. Kennedy’s legislative program, encompassing such areas as civil rights, the economy, and foreign relations. [Am. Hist.: WB, K:212] See : Aid, Governmental to learning possibilities. In the future, students will have the ability to attend classes remotely with the most gifted teachers in the world, participating in real-time. &uot;With Alcatel's Gigabit Ethernet-based network connecting the schools, users will be able to access educational information and rely on network connectivity regardless of location,&uot; said Greg Kovich, Alcatel education spokesman. &uot;The investment the school district makes today will be returned down the road in the form of enlightened students and future employees.&uot; The Alcatel OmniCore 5022 routing switch will be used as a main node in the network with OmniCore 5010 routing switches installed in each of their remote schools in a star configuration. &uot;The combination of Gigabit Ethernet and fiber provides a highly reliable and scalable network solution allowing the E-MAN to meet current and predicted future bandwidth demands without having to replace equipment, even as usage increases over the coming years,&uot; said Mark Brantner, Alcatel MAN spokesman. &uot;WAN links from traditional telecommunications companies See telecom company. are notoriously expensive,&uot; said Mike Massari, vice president/COO, Fiberworks. &uot;With our gigabit over fiber solution, organizations such as the Whiteville City School district who need large amounts of bandwidth and have multiple locations can connect at gigabit speeds and have high-speed access to applications situated anywhere on the network.&uot; About the OmniCore 5000 family of routing switches The OmniCore 5000 family's extensive routing capabilities, flexible connectivity options, powerful architecture, and policy-based management See policy management. simplify network design and administration reducing the cost of ownership. Superior forwarding rates, scalability, and mission-critical resiliency features make the OmniCore 5000 family of routing switches the ideal solution for scaling network performance. Designed for use at the core of a metropolitan area network (MAN), the modular OmniCore 5052 has a non-blocking capacity of 52 Gbps of bandwidth, provides wire-speed routing of more than 37 million packets per second and supports up to 73 ports of Gigabit Ethernet, 240 auto-sensing 10/100 Ethernet ports A socket on a computer or network device for plugging in an Ethernet cable. See WAN port. , as well as FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) Often pronounced "fiddy," it was a LAN and MAN access method that had its heyday in the mid-1990s. FDDI was an ANSI standard token passing network that transmitted 100 Mbps over optical fiber up to 10 kilometers. and packet-over-SONET. Designed for use at the aggregation point of a metropolitan area network (MAN), the modular OmniCore 5022 has a non-blocking capacity of 22 Gbps of bandwidth, provides wire-speed routing of more than 14 million packets per second, and supports up to 30 ports of Gigabit Ethernet, 100 auto-sensing 10/100 Ethernet ports, as well as FDDI and packet-over-SONET. For use at remote locations of a metropolitan area network (MAN), the OmniCore 5010 has a non-blocking capacity of 10 Gbps of bandwidth supporting full loads on 20 auto-sensing 10/100 Ethernet ports and two-Gigabit Ethernet ports. &uot;We looked at all the leading technologies available and decided to go with a Gigabit Ethernet solution from Alcatel because it costs less and is faster,&uot; added Medlin of the Whiteville City School district. &uot;Alcatel provides us with an ideal solution that's robust, reliable and easy to manage.&uot; About Alcatel Alcatel builds next generation networks, delivering integrated end-to-end voice and data communications solutions to established and new carriers, as well as enterprises and consumers worldwide. With 120,000 employees and sales of EURO 21.3 billion ($25.0 billion), Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel at http://www.alcatel.com or the US Web site at http://www.ind.alcatel.com. About Fiberworks Fiberworks, Inc. is a solutions company providing comprehensive voice, data and video communications service. Formed in 1994 by Scott P. Burkholder (President/CEO) and Michael Massari (VP/COO). Operating primarily throughout the southeastern United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , FIBERWORKS has provided its customers with high-performance, fiber- and copper-based communications infrastructures and, to date, the company has installed fully integrated communication networks in over 550 separate locations. The company was incorporated December 1994 as an S-corporation in the state of Georgia. In April 1998, the company brought in outside investors and converted to a C-corporation. |
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