Motorola-partner Cirrus Communications has won the contract to deploy a $2 million Motorola wireless network for Charles Sturt University's nine campuses in regional NSW.
Cirrus Communications is installing the network, funded in part by the Federal Government's Better University Renewal Fund.
On completion, about 11,000 students and staff at the university will be able to take advantage of wireless access to the internet and other online resources from the university's campuses, Motorola claimed.
Phillip Roy, director of operations division of Information Technology at Charles Sturt, said the university needed a new network to take advantage of "next generation mobile digital learning applications."
"Our experience of wireless networking in the past could be summed up as ad-hoc," he said. Access was limited to certain hotspots, and varied depending on the campus - even the location within individual campuses," Roy said.
"This new network will give us blanket wireless coverage... across all the campuses... both indoors and outdoors, and extend to adjoining student residences as well."
Roy said the university wanted to cater for the large number of different devices that students use for content.
Cirrus Communications' chief executive officer Dr Eric Heyde says the university's geography presented specific challenges for the design team.
"Because the university is so spread out, we had to plan for different access densities to ensure consistent performance in all areas.
"While density is typically not an issue in light traffic areas, the high number of concurrent devices that would connect to the network in, say, a crowded lecture hall, needed to be accounted for and managed."
Roy Wittert, manager, Motorola Wireless Network Solutions, Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions, Australia and New Zealand, said the network will give the university "a competitive advantage in the provision of open, accessible wireless access".
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