Potential in e-pipelines

Media Release

23 July 2003

Potential in e-pipelines

Waikato University is welcoming the Government’s announcement that a Telecom-BCL partnership has won the tender to install a network that will bring broadband computer connections to the gate of every school in the Waikato.

Broadband allows schools to get high-speed data services and do live video links via the Internet.

But Logan Moss, senior lecturer in the University’s school of education, says having more broadband capacity in local schools is also good news for Waikato University as well.

“It means, for example, that Waikato University will be better positioned to deliver live first level lectures via video to senior high school students in the region and to adults wanting to do distance learning after hours at, say, a rural primary school.”

The University already uses live video conferencing to link lecturers in Hamilton with classes in Tauranga.

It has also recently linked up with CoroNet, a Coromandel broadband video-conferencing network run by the region’s schools.

“We are confident our link with CoroNet and the expansion of broadband services in the Waikato will help us further successfully develop our distance learning services in our wider region,” says Mr Moss.

The University’s director of information technology services Derek Postlewaight served on the regional steering committee that acted as an advisory group on bringing broadband services to Waikato schools.

ENDS

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