IP network provider, NetStar Australia, has been chosen to deploy one of the largest Internet Protocol networks in Australia for the campuses of Swinburne University.

The project, worth over $7 million, will overhaul the communications infrastructure across the University’s six Victorian campuses, with over 18,000 IP endpoints and 4,000 IP screen phones.

The Cisco IP Solution will combine voice, data and video as well as unified messaging capability.

“The new IP infrastructure will result in over $900,000 in cost savings, so it is much more cost effective to implement IP telephony,” claimed Richard Constantine, CIO and IT Director at Swinburne University. “We will also benefit from a more sophisticated communications platform, enhanced capabilities and simplified maintenance.

“Swinburne was a pioneer in trialling IP telephony four years ago and we understand benefits that it can deliver,” he said. “The new infrastructure will enable us to carry out our business more efficiently, address our organisational needs and achieve our goals over the coming years.”

One of the main drivers to implement IP telephony was to reduce the costs associated with improving and maintaining Swinburne’s existing outdated PABX infrastructure.

“With the IP solution and fully featured IP screen phones, we can retire our ageing PABX infrastructure and avoid the duplication of cost in supporting multiple systems,” Constantine said. “We will also benefit from reduced costs in refurbishing old buildings or fitting out new ones through installing one cable as opposed to separate voice and data lines.”

“The University experiences a high level of organic growth each year and we were having to spend increasing amounts on upgrades to support this. The new infrastructure provides plenty of room for growth,” Constantine said.

According to Justin Bock, senior account manager at NetStar Australia, the need for increased security and reliability also played an important role in choosing the new infrastructure and an implementation partner.

“New security threats are emerging all the time. The new IP infrastructure will provide Swinburne with a highly secure network that is flexible enough to meet evolving security threats, is less susceptible to internal or external attacks and is resilient to viruses and worms,” Bock said.

“We will also implement Cisco Security Agent, which will enable Swinburne to interrogate any device attempting to connect to the network, scan it for vulnerabilities and ensure that the most up to date anti-virus software and patches are installed before it is allowed to connect.”

Swinburne University has one of the largest existing Cisco Wireless Networks in Australia, with over 400 wireless base stations. Students and staff can access the Swinburne network for any location on any of the Victorian campuses at any time. NetStar will re-design the network to increase security and deliver additional cost savings, efficiencies and improved capabilities.

“NetStar is providing a flexible solution that whether wired or wireless, offers the same characteristics across all Swinburne sites,” Bock said. “The new IP network is also more robust with increased reliability to support voice, data and multimedia applications.

“The number of disruptions to students and staff will be reduced as there will be less downtime due to equipment failure or forced upgrades of the aging PABX system,” he said.

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