CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY
Visionary large-scale wireless network deployment frees teachers and students from confining cables and lets them communicate, share information, and access the Internet from anywhere in their schools.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
The Department of Education and Training, Victoria (DE&T) is not afraid of big numbers or tough challenges. Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, the department oversees 540,000 students, 42,000 teachers, and 1,630 school sites over an area that spans 227,600 square kilometers-roughly the size of the United Kingdom.
The Victoria DE&T is driven by an ambitious goal: to foster and maintain a technology leadership position in K-12 public student education, not just throughout Australia, but throughout the world. To begin to achieve that end, the Department initiated a program to give each of the 42,000 teachers in Victoria a laptop computer. However, several months after the laptops had been distributed, a research study commissioned by the district revealed inconsistent adoption and use among educators. According to the surveys, a significant impediment to the use of notebooks in the classroom was the lack of connectivity to school network resources, other computers, and the Internet.
Traditional wired network solutions were rejected as too costly and time-consuming. Estimates averaged AUD$6,000 (approximately US$4,500) per classroom to run network cabling, but costs soared even higher in older school buildings. Running cables in classrooms also raised safety concerns, and the wired network gave teachers and students no freedom of movement.
As a result, the Victoria DE&T developed an initiative known as the Wireless Networks for Schools (WiNS) program to equip all public schools with secure, high-speed, wireless access to education resources and the Internet. Minister for Education Services Jacinta Allan described WiNs as the largest secure wireless network project of its type in the southern hemisphere and noted that the technology represents a major shift in the way computer and information technology is used in and out of classrooms. AUD$6 million (approximately US$4.5 million) in state funding was earmarked to accomplish the task.
NETWORK SOLUTION
The Victoria DE&T request for proposal (RFP) sent out to wireless vendors included three stringent requirements:
• Aggressive Timeline: "Project funding was granted with the expectation that installation be completed within eleven months; typically, a project of this magnitude would take three years," explains Katrina Reyman, assistant general manager, Information Technology Division, DE&T. The installation numbers were sobering: over 1,600 security servers and 9,900 wireless access points (APs).
• Tough Security: The network design had to meet internationally recognized International Organization of Standardization (ISO) 17799 security standards to defend against internal and external attacks. The risks went far beyond damage to a single school: a security breach at one location could jeopardize the integrity of the entire IP network connecting all Victoria public schools.
• Centralized Management and Policy Deployment: The DE&T wanted a consolidated management architecture for deploying software upgrades and consistent security and access policies throughout all schools.
According to Reynen, Cisco Systems® offered a superior solution compared to other wireless vendors because of its wireless technology expertise-especially in wireless security-performance and functionality, support and maintenance, competitive pricing, and the ability to deliver under limited time constraints. "Cisco® was also receptive to requests for Cisco IOS® Software architecture details and changes to facilitate our security application development efforts, " says Loris Meadows, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) security manager.
The Cisco Aironet® 1200 Series Access Point offered three critical features that differentiated it from the competition. First, the wireless AP supports a wide variety of client types, important because schools across the state of Victoria use diverse operating systems on PCs and servers. Second, its radio performance and antenna coverage outperformed competitors in internal comparative product testing. Most importantly, the AP provides different levels of user and administrative security and access control.
Almost ten thousand Cisco Aironet 1200 APs were deployed throughout Victoria public schools; installation began in February 2005 and finished on schedule in June 2005. In each school, the APs connect to the wireless LAN through a highly secure Education Proxy and Security Server (EduPaSS), developed internally by the Victoria DE&T ICT security team. More than sixteen hundred of these servers, one deployed at each school, are centrally controlled and managed by the ICT staff. The servers authenticate both user and laptop using digital certificates before granting access to the wireless network. Teachers can move flexibly anywhere within their school and connect seamlessly with their laptops using a universal login capability that significantly reduces the administration time required for adds, moves, and changes.
Rynen points out that to achieve the same level of connectivity using a wired network would have been prohibitively expensive, at least three to four times the AUD$6 million wireless project price tag.
BUSINESS VALUE
The Victoria DE&T wireless networks boast the same security and centralized management features so valued in wired networks. The new wireless LANs replace isolated, unsecured, "home-grown" wireless networks that had cropped up in schools throughout Victoria. Centralizing client management cuts support time by automating software maintenance and upgrades for dozens of applications on thousands of laptops. Centrally controlled user and site security enables the ICT staff to apply security policies consistently across all Victoria schools and monitor wireless networks from one central location.
As importantly, says Reynen, "Cisco wireless networks `help to take the technology off the agenda' for our teachers and give them the flexibility to move around their learning spaces, inside a classroom or in other areas within school grounds."
With the wireless networks in place, each class connects to its own curriculum site on the school Intranet. Teachers can create a host of Web-based and digital materials to share with students to enhance classes-labs to simulate math and science concepts, extra-credit projects, homework questions, sample quizzes, as well as links to related Web sites. Students are also able to collaborate on Web projects with different classes or schools, learning valuable team-building and computer skills. Teachers are delighted with their new freedom and capabilities, as this sampling of comments from a recent district survey shows:
NEXT STEPS
The Victoria DE&T ICT staff are considering a trial of voice over IP (VoIP) over the wireless network in schools. With a handset and microphone, teachers will be able to quickly and conveniently make calls from their laptops without having to make a special trip to the office; incoming calls could be logged into a messaging inbox in each teacher's computer. Another big upcoming initiative that complements the wireless networks is an ambitious four-year project working with Telstra and Cisco to upgrade to a high-speed, scaleable, fiber-based wide area network (WAN) to every public school. The project is designed to open up economic development in outlying regions and further Victoria's DE&T technological leadership goals.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Cisco Systems has helped educators improve the quality of education and reduce costs, while advancing new learning techniques and making education accessible to all students. To learn more about how Cisco wireless network solutions can help your school or university, contact your local account representative or visit http://www.cisco.com/go/education or http://www.cisco.com/go/wireless.
