ACADEMIA

BridgeWave Communications announced that John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York, NY has been running multiple BridgeWave GE60 wireless links to support its campus-wide network flawlessly for over three years. BridgeWave's GigE wireless bridges reliably provide scalable network connectivity while managing the school's bandwidth growth and delivering significant ROI.

Located on the upper west side of New York City, John Jay College is an international leader in educating for justice, offering a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum. The college has seen explosive growth over the last several years and is now home to more than 15,000 students from more than 135 nations. This immense growth has had a direct and significant impact on decisions related to technology spending, especially when it came down to the scalability and cost effectiveness of inter-building connections.

The campus network is comprised of thousands of wired ports and a campus-wide wireless network across four buildings. The network is constantly evolving to include VoIP technologies, video, security cameras, time clocks, backups and increased reliance on classroom and other information sharing applications; all designed to enhance the learning experience for the college's students, as well as improve operational efficiencies for the school. As the demand on the network began to exceed existing connectivity, the college investigated an alternative, high capacity solution, including both wireless and wireline. Leased fiber was considered, but required considerable upfront construction costs as well as five-figure recurring annual fees. Transparent LAN Services (TLS) were also considered, but dismissed for similar reasons.

The IT team determined that the service and cost-effective benefits of BridgeWave's 60 GHz wireless solution presented the best option. Installed by local Value Added Retailer AxisPoint, BridgeWave's license-free GE60 links are running a variety of services between campus buildings. One of the links is installed behind glass, providing five nines reliability while delivering fiber-equivalent full-duplex gigabit throughput with low latency, without the interference issues usually associated with unlicensed, lower-frequency devices. Complete ROI was achieved in just a few months. Over time, the system has saved the college over $500,000 compared to equivalent leased-fiber solutions.

"Compared to other offerings, BridgeWave's links provide more bandwidth at a minimal maintenance cost," said Praveen Panchal, chief information officer at John Jay College department of Information Technology. "Essentially, we get GigE connectivity without breaking the budget and an 'install-n-forget' solution for data and voice connectivity that has been reliable as the fiber connection between our buildings over several years."

"BridgeWave's high-capacity wireless solutions deliver high-performance connectivity for educational institutions that are constantly faced with increasing demands on the network," said Amir Makleff, president and CEO of BridgeWave Communications. "Our solutions have been running flawlessly for several years, enabling John Jay College to operate efficiently and cost-effectively."

BridgeWave will be presenting with John Jay College at the CUNY IT Conference 2011 on December 2 at 9:30 a.m. The conference offers an overview of the University's key IT initiatives, demonstrations of how technology continues to change instruction, research, and administration, and a chance to meet and discuss technology solutions with vendors.