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Cisco Case Study: Small college uses wireless network,
VoIP phones to continue changing lives
Situation
Lake Region State College is a two-year community college serving approximately 1,700 students in Devils Lake, Grand Forks Air Force Base, online and through other delivery methods. Moving to a campus-wide wireless network was something that had been on the mind of Lake Region State College CIO Toofawn Simhai for some time. But concerns about speed and security, as well as sparse use of laptops by students, kept it from becoming an urgent project.

That changed in the spring of 2009, when the confluence of several events – including the proven stability of the 802.11n-standard – created an opportunity to not only add wireless capabilities but also set the school at the forefront of technology in North Dakota higher education.

“Going wireless wasn’t something we had to do, so I wanted to wait until we could do it right,” Simhai says. “In 2009, the quality of service was there, the security and encryption were there, and the cost came down considerably.”

As word of the impending move spread, Simhai was also asked to look into changing the campus phone system from an aging PBX to a Voice over IP (VoIP) system that would tie Lake Region State College to its center at Grand Forks Air Force Base.

“The old phone system was expensive and hard to work with from a technical standpoint,” Simhai says. “Whenever we wanted to move a phone, someone from our supplier would have to drive 100 miles each way from East Grand Forks just for that. We didn’t have many of the features users expect, such as caller ID, either. We wanted to do better.”

Solution
With only a two-week window to implement both systems, and knowing her small internal staff didn’t have the resources to take on these two large projects on top of their other duties, Simhai turned to Corporate Technologies, a Cisco Premier Certified partner. Corporate Technologies has worked with Simhai for years on a variety of installations and has become her first choice for major upgrades.

Corporate Technologies started by performing a site survey, then recommended upgrading to a Cisco 10GB network with 21 wireless access points and replacing analog phones with a Cisco unified communications system. All 112 residence hall rooms would receive Cisco IP phones, 128 phones would be given to staff and faculty, and 12 wireless phones would be given to maintenance and other key staff.

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sday, May 13, 20108:00am – 12:00pm
Location: CPR's offices, Grand Rapids, MI

ITMA's May meeting will explore Strategic I.T. Sourcing. Richard Matlus, Research Vice President from Gartner Group will present an overview on how nationally and globally companies are moving towards strategic sourcing. ITMA members will provide local insight and experiences. Tim Dechant, Director of Technology from W.K. Kellogg Foundation will provide a case study on how they have utilized strategic sourcing for 15+ years and how it has evolved to include cloud computing and virtualization.  IT Leaders: Bob Krestakos, CIO of Steelcase and Barb Hiemstra, Deputy Director for Technology from Kent County will share their perspective from medium and enterprise organizations.

Collectively, we will cover the key drivers for implementing strategic sourcing, the elements of successful practice, the critical criteria for making strategic sourcing decisions, and the different sourcing approaches to consider.

An Example of Strategic Sourcing topics covered will include:

Infrastructure & Applications

Key Management Considerations and Issues

Sourcing Models

Wednesday, May 26, 2010 12:00pm – 7:00pm

Join the Chamber's second largest event attended by well over 1,600 visitors comprising of decisions makers, buyers and influencers. Click on the image to register for free ticket and print out.

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