CISCO Systems has been chosen by the Hong Kong Polytechnic to provide the territory's first advanced networking operational Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) campus-wide network. The $68 million Campus-wide Information System (CWIS) network, which is expected to be completed in the beginning of September, is expected to take Hong Kong to the forefront of data-communication technology in Asia. Bing Liao, general manager for Cisco Systems, Hong Kong and the Philippines, said: 'The network will take a couple of weeks to install, but it will be up and running just in time for the start of the new term.' He said the deal was a good chance for the university and Cisco to help advance technology in Hong Kong. 'The ATM industry is just about to start expanding in the territory, and this network will provide the campus on-line service with better audio and video quality,' he said. ATM was originally designed for fibre-optic telephone lines. It can be considered the next generation of transmission technology which is capable of sending voice, video, data and images at speeds up to 622 megabits per second (Mpbs) - which should help the campus gather information at a faster speed than currently possible. Using switches and routers from Cisco, the network will speed up the students' Internet access and pave the way for new on-line services which will include an electronic library facility. Mr Liao said: 'This concept will create a paperless campus and the students will have information accessible at the tips of their fingers.' Ken Chung, senior computing officer of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University's information technology service, said: 'The need for research staff and students to access the most current information sources and to conduct co-operative research with colleagues in other locations has led to universities becoming a major driving force behind the adoption of advanced computer networks.' He added that the problem facing most campus networks administrators today was that more and more sources of information on the Internet were moving away from being purely text based to incorporating sophisticated images, such as those on the World-Wide Web. As a result, many campus networks both regionally and worldwide were being stretched to the limit, resulting in considerable delays during peak periods, he said. 'This new network will enable the campus to easily install its own Web pages and hook to video networks,' Mr Liao said. 'Although individual ATM devices have been installed at the Chinese University and the Baptist University previously, they have been mainly used for experimental purposes. 'The network being installed at the Polytechnic University will be the first product network or one used on a day-to-day basis.' The ATM project will improve the on-line library facilities. The most basic service offered is the on-line public access catalogue (OPAC), whereby anyone can locate the whereabouts and availability of any book. OPAC will connect to other universities in Hong Kong and around the world, and its high bandwidth will also allow users to access newspaper clippings and slide images. The ATM network will include Cisco switches such as the LightStream 100 and 2020, six 7000 core multiprotocol routers and Catalyst 5000 multilayer switches. It will also come with Kalpana ProStack switches.
