Cisco To Deliver Cross-Campus Unified Communications Solution to Nottingham Trent University

Students will be able to work wirelessly across all university sites

LONDON - Cisco today announced it is to deliver one of the largest deployments of Unified Communications in the Higher Education sector in a multi-million pound deal with Nottingham Trent University (NTU). Cisco and Logicalis, a Gold Certified Partner, will collaborate to develop a complete cross-campus Cisco®Unified Communications system. Students will now be able to work wherever they are on campus and wirelessly access all the university’s resources online.

NTU is taking advantage of Cisco’s Unified Workspace Licensing, procuring a broad range of Cisco Unified Communications applications and services on a per-user basis. The converged voice-and-data network will enable the information technology (IT) department to manage resources more efficiently, giving staff more time to support a growing student body and expanding campus. A single-vendor solution will address interoperability issues and enable NTU to grow and adapt the network as student needs evolve.

David Swayne, IT Director at NTU commented: By installing the Cisco Unified Communications system across the university, we now have a platform for our communications infrastructure to develop alongside the university. This project will go a long way towards driving innovation at NTU and help enhance our national and international reputation as a dynamic and forward-thinking institution"

“The technology will allow us to create a better learning environment for our students by giving them the flexibility to work from anywhere. There’s no reason why learning should be confined to the traditional lecture hall,” Swayne added.

The Cisco Unified Communications system will play a key role in the university’s multi-million pound development of the Newton Arkwright building in the city centre. Cisco Unified Communications will also allow phones to be integrated with the University’s Wi-Fi infrastructure.

Previously, NTU had separate voice systems, which caused many problems in the University’s IT infrastructure; the challenge for Cisco was to bring these disparate systems together to enable students and staff to access voice, data, video and mobile applications on the new network. The university turned to Cisco and Logicalis to establish a well-managed, cost-effective platform on which it would be able to take advantage of the advanced and emerging technologies on offer and become one of the most innovative institutions in the Higher Education sector.

About Nottingham Trent University, www.ntu.ac.uk

Nottingham Trent University is a large, diverse and vibrant modern university. Its mission is to deliver education and research that shape lives and society and in doing so the university offers a strong portfolio of courses that are designed to meet the needs of students, industry and the professions.

The University has nurtured close working relationships with more than 6,000 employers from business, public and private sector organisations and has one of the highest number of students in Great Britain working on year-long placements (Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) student records 2006-07).

It’s consistently ranked as one of the top universities for graduate employment in the UK. Latest performance figures from HESA placed Nottingham Trent University third out of all universities in England and Wales for its graduate employment rates. More than 97 per cent of graduates with first degrees from full time study are employed or engaged in further study six months after leaving the university.

Nottingham Trent University is currently the 18th most popular UK university in terms of applications received, and is one of only two universities in the top 30 to show an increase in the number of applications this year.

Links / URLs:

* Cisco Unified Communications - http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/

* Cisco Unified Workspace Licensing http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9156/index.html

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