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Communications Planning Group

UC Davis Campus Report

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

September, 2001


Infrastructure

CENIC Sacramento Wide Area Networking Project (SWAN)

The lease for the network hub at 1107 9th Street has been signed, and site construction has begun. The facility will include a generator for emergency power along with the internal air conditioning, power, and fire suppression systems needed to support the network. After the network hub is completed in mid-October, participants can begin to move equipment into the facility. CENIC has already started to work with Pacific Bell to incorporate the equipment for the Digital California Project in this facility.

With the city permit also on file, trenching between 1107 9th Street and the major carrier hotel located at 770 L Street will begin this month to complete the fiber connection to the Qwest and City of Sacramento network hubs.

Health Sciences District Network Upgrade

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

UCDNet2

The UCDNet2 Project, the expansion of the Network 21 network infrastructure into the outlying areas of the UC Davis campus, is progressing according to schedule. The Underground Infrastructure and Controlled Environment Facilities subprojects have been completed. The Distribution Facilities Renovations and CR Building Remodel subprojects are in progress and should be completed this month.

The Foundry Networks was selected to supply equipment for the Electronics subproject. The Outside Plant Cable subproject for the installation of the fiber cable is out to bid, with a due date of September 27. The Communication Station Wiring subproject is scheduled to go out to bid this month, as well.

Wireless Networking: Advanced Technology Project Update

Information and Educational Technology (IET) is finalizing plans for the operation of what started as a wireless networking pilot in three public areas. The project plan is underway, and it includes a secure authentication process for mobile access. Individual user privacy issues continue to be a concern for the UC Davis campus committees tasked to deal with wireless networking decisions. Currently, users are notified of the privacy risks. Progress on this plan is on the Web at http://wireless.ucdavis.edu/.

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 for UC Davis. The first draft of this policy has been submitted to campus committees for comment. (See the UC Davis September 2001 JOG report at http://iet.ucdavis.edu/pubs/JOG/9-01/ for more on this policy.)

CR has completed a draft Request for Information requesting WAN (wide area network), LAN (local area network) and PAN (personal area network) vendor solutions for the future development of wireless computing in the greater Sacramento area. California State University, Sacramento; California State University, Chico; and the Chancellor's Office of the California Community College system are coauthoring the RFI with UC Davis. CR plans to release the document in September.

Service Developments

MyPhone

MyPhone (http://myphone.ucdavis.edu/) will be an addition to the student Web portal MyUCDavis, and CR's first step at providing online telephone services for students. The first phase of MyPhone was released on September 4 and included: The second phase of MyPhone will build on the existing student services by providing:

Voice Recognition

The UC Davis voice recognition system supplied by Phonetics is operational as of September 7. In August, UC Davis faculty and staff were notified that voice recognition was coming to campus, and they were asked to test the system and give feedback through a Web survey. Sixty-one people responded to the survey: the responses were evaluated to improve the system. The majority of the responses were very positive; notably 90 percent of the respondents were able to find the phone number they needed.

Now that the voice recognition system is "live," it is the "front end" for all incoming calls to campus information. The 24-hour system has the ability to locate the phone number for a person or department and connects calls to their destination. There is the choice to talk to a live operator during business hours