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Communications Planning Group

UC Davis Campus Report

Submitted by Information and Educational Technology's Communications Resources (CR).

January, 2002

Infrastructure

CENIC Sacramento Wide Area Networking Project (SWAN)

Phase one of SWAN, or Sacramento Wide Area Network, was completed in November with the installation of a fiber connection from our collocation facility at 1107 9th Street to a carrier hotel at 770 L Street. As a result, CENIC has been able to activate the Governor's Digital California project (http://www.cenic.org/DCP.html) in Sacramento, essentially providing Internet service to all the K-12 schools in the region. In addition, CENIC can now proceed with the installation of equipment for its Optical Network Infrastructure (ONI) initiative, a project that will greatly enhance the networking speed available to higher education on the West Coast.

The second phase of the SWAN project will provide fiber connection between UC Davis and the 1107 9th Street facility in Sacramento. Negotiations are underway with Surewest and Charter Communications to provide fiber in exchange for site access and space at UC Davis. UC Davis would provide space for a controlled environment facility on South Campus, rack space in the NOC, space for a tower, a generator, and an electronics support building on West Campus. UC Davis would also provide space for a microwave at UCDMC and rack space in the 1107 9th Street space for Surewest. Charter wants space on West Campus for a 2400 square foot building and access to two ½ miles of electric poles for running their fiber overhead expanding to the edge of the Primate Center. Once completed, both UCDMC and UC Davis will have direct access to each other and to the high speed ONI infrastructure. The second phase will take approximately one year to complete.

Health Sciences District Network Upgrade

The Health Sciences District (HSD) Electronics Replacement Project upgraded nine buildings (with 1166 network connections) from ATM to Gigabit Ethernet in October. This area serves as the interface between the current campus ATM network and the planned Gigabit Ethernet expansion into outlying campus areas.

Sutter Buttes Microwave Dismantling

In October, Communications Resources coordinated the dismantling and removal of a ten-foot microwave dish and two accompanying racks of equipment from the top of the Sutter Buttes. The microwave link to CSU Chico is no longer being used there for distance education uplinks. The joint agreement between UC Davis and CSU Chico was subsequently terminated.

UCDNet2

The UCDNet2 Project, which expands the Network 21 network infrastructure into the outlying areas of the UC Davis campus, continues to progress on schedule. This past quarter the Distribution Facilities Renovations and the CR Building Remodel subprojects were completed.

The Outside Cable Plant subproject bid was awarded to PNS Communications Group of Livermore, California. The fiber cable for this subproject is being installed.

The Communication Station Wiring subproject contract has been awarded to Rex Moore Telecommunications from West Sacramento, California. Work on this subproject began December 17, 2001.

Video Collaboration Project

Communications Resources and MediaWorks (another department within Information and Educational Technology) are coordinating a pilot project in classroom video distribution methods this Winter Quarter with Professor Naomi Janowitz of Religious Studies. Dr. Janowitz received a grant from the Teaching Resources Center to place her lectures for Religious Studies 1 on DVD for her students to view in the computer/media labs. Making her lectures available on DVD freed up valuable class time that is not used for group discussions. Dr. Janowitz feels that this new teaching model will give her students more individual attention and enhance their ability to participate in the course.

CR has helped to expand the project to include lecture broadcasts on ResNet TV and Davis Community Cable . CR will also help MediaWorks set up streaming video for all the lectures on a test server. The project includes a survey of the 120 students in this course to determine which of these viewing methods they prefer.

Update on Wireless Networking Advanced Technology Project

Information and Educational Technology (IET) implemented wireless networking in two public areas in December. In addition to registering their wireless network card one time, users go through a secure authentication process each time they access the wireless network. Individual user privacy issues continue to be a concern for the UC Davis campus committees tasked with wireless networking decisions.

To complement service model plans for campus wireless networking locations, a workgroup is developing a campus policy to set the stage for future wireless networking development. A draft of this policy, as well as information about the wireless service, is on the Web at http://wireless.ucdavis.edu/.

A Wireless RFI was released on October 15, 2001, jointly sponsored by UCD, CSU Sacramento and Chico, and the Chancellor's Office of the California Community College System. The RFI was sent to over 30 wireless vendors; many more downloaded the document from the UC Davis Purchasing Web site. Responses were due back by Monday, November 26, 2001. Five vendors submitted proposals for evaluation - ATTWS, AVAYA, Enterasys, a combined response from Ericsson/IPWireless, and Pac Bell. All responses are being evaluated.

Service Developments


MyPhone

The second phase of MyPhone, the student telephone service online application program, will build on existing services by providing to student housing users Web access to: The planning for this phase began in October; we expect to have it implemented for the March 2002 billing cycle.