Partnerships in connectivity extending the campus network
James I. Lesslie · 1997
Most university campuses have experienced a dramatic growth in demandfor connections to the university's network, and to the Internet beyond. Many of us have found ourselves functioning as inter-net service providers, an industry that didn't exist when we started hooking modems up to our central systems years ago.There is rapidly escalating demandfor more connections andforfaster, more reliable service.And, we're feeling squeezed front all sides.Students are now heavy network users, administrative departments want to provide more services on the "net", and faculties and schools want to offer new academic programs, or enhance existing ones, via Internet services.At Queen's, we have recently formed several working relationships to pursue the development of a higher speed networking framework that reaches beyond traditional campus buildings.In one case, we participated in a joint project with the University Residences to wire and service 3,100 "'pillows" with ethernet connections.More recently, we signed an innovative business agreement with our local cable-n, company to extend our backbone network into the residential parts of the city, to service our students, stafi and faculty.These initiatives have meant a lot of planning and work for our stag in ITS, but both are enabling in that they provide far better remote access tltau has been possible before.For some people this will be a welcome relieffront the congestion and slow speeds of our modem services.This paper will outline the structure of these two projects, what was involved, and how we managed to cope with the rapid growth of our campus network in a relatively short period of time.Some time will be spent discussing the key elements of the partnerships.