March 14, 2007 -- Fujitsu Network Communications (search for Fujitsu) has announced that it is creating a converged broadband network for the Seattle Public School System. The network, which comprises multiservice SONET and DWDM products from Fujitsu, has been designed to support the district's advanced application requirements while offering an ongoing cost reduction over leased network facilities.
The city's elementary, middle, and high schools will receive broadband connections in excess of 100 Mbits/sec.
"One of the key responsibilities of our school district is to provide the tools that enhance educational opportunities for students at all levels of the educational system, while always being mindful of the costs to do so," said Dugal Easton, manager of network systems at the Seattle Public School System. "With our original SONET network that was based on the Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 4000 products we were able to create a highly reliable network that gave students access to the vast resources of the Internet. In today's environment where bandwidth demands are much higher, Fujitsu has helped us create a powerful private network that can support all of our voice and data requirements, while eliminating the significant costs we used to pay for leased T1 and T3 services."
In the first quarter of 2006, the Seattle Public School System deployed Fujitsu FLASHWAVE 7500 DWDM nodes in its backbone network to increase its capacity by a factor of 16. In the second quarter, FLASHWAVE 7500 nodes were deployed at all eight high schools and a major administrative site within the school district to allow Gigabit Ethernet connections to be established into the core network. In the third quarter, these nine DWDM nodes began aggregating traffic from multiple FLASHWAVE 4500 and FLASHWAVE 4100 Multiservice Provisioning Platforms (MSPPs), which were used to provide 300-Mbit/sec Ethernet connections into each middle school. The school district was able to increase bandwidth to each school over pre-existing leased T3 (45-Mbit/sec) connections, plus realize significant cost savings.
By the end of 2006, the first OC-12 SONET ring was created via FLASHWAVE 4020 Ethernet Service Platforms (ESPs) deployed at nine elementary schools. These platforms now provide 100-Mbit/sec Ethernet connections to each of these schools, and replace the legacy T1 connections that the district had been leasing. Over time, additional OC-12 rings and 100-Mbit/sec Ethernet connections will be installed at the remaining 63 elementary schools to further reduce network operating costs for the school district.
The school district has also purchased a Fujitsu NETSMART 1500 Element Management System (EMS) to monitor and provision new circuits across their network.