Tuesday, 30 May 2006

Tsukuba Univ Uses Wireless Mesh Network from Nortel

University of Tsukuba, one of Japan’s national universities, is creating a ‘hotzone’ to provide seamless and secure anywhere, anytime communications for students and faculty using a wireless mesh network solution from Nortel.

The wireless mesh network will cover a 230,000 m2 area of the campus and enable outdoor broadband wireless access to the public Internet and the university network. Students and faculty will be able to use laptops and handheld computing devices to access online and university resources as well as applications such as wireless VoIP.

In-building wireless access for colleges, dormitories and other facilities is planned as part of future network expansion. Nortel business partner Marubeni Solutions Corp. is handling network implementation.

"The availability of wireless broadband access across our campus will dramatically improve the research environment for our student body and teaching staff," said Kozo Itano, director of Academic Computing and Communication Center, University of Tsukuba.

Nortel's Wireless Mesh Network solution uses wireless links to connect access points installed inside or outside to provide secure, seamless access to wireless broadband services. This solution allows enterprises, such as universities, to install wireless LANs in areas where it is difficult or cost-prohibitive to run cables.

The University of Tsukuba will deploy 24 Nortel Wireless Access Point 7220 links to provide secure, seamless campus-wide outdoor access to wireless broadband services, with indoor access enabled by Nortel's Wireless Access Point 7215 units in the next phase of deployment.

Security for the University’s wireless communications is designed into the network by installing Wireless Gateway 7250 units to control the area between access points. Because the solution uses IEEE 802.11 standards, users with Wi-Fi enabled laptops or handheld computing devices will be able to access the university network or Internet without new hardware or software.