Press Releases

RSS Feed

George Brown College Graduates to High-Speed Campus-Wide Connectivity with BridgeWave's Highly Reliable, Gigabit Ethernet Wireless Links

Santa Clara, CA – May 12, 2008 – BridgeWave Communications, the leading supplier of gigabit wireless solutions, today announced that George Brown College, one of Canada's largest, most diversified and highly respected colleges, has deployed six BridgeWave GE60 wireless links to upgrade its campus‐wide network. The new, upgraded GigE solution provides improved performance and user experience while managing the school's bandwidth growth and saving tens of thousands of dollars in operating costs.

George Brown College, with a total enrollment of more than 20,000 full‐time equivalent students across three main campuses in the greater Toronto area, is a proven technology pioneer. Yet maintaining adequate bandwidth presented a challenge due to increased adoption of in‐class video, distance learning and information sharing applications. In order to upgrade its network, the school investigated leading‐edge wireless technology when it became apparent that relying on fiber‐optic leased lines for building‐to‐building connectivity on its disparate campuses would cost nearly $20,000 for monthly leasing fees.

The college sought the assistance of Trispec Communications, a national engineering and distribution firm with headquarters in Montreal and substantial broadband cable, telecommunications and wireless expertise. Together they determined that BridgeWave’s reliable and highly economical wireless links could provide “five nines” network uptime to meet existing service level agreements (SLAs), while providing enough capacity for growing bandwidth requirements. As an alternative to spending nearly $20,000 per month on leased fiber, Trispec installed six license‐free GE60 links across the three main campuses. Complete ROI was achieved in eight months.

According to Yves Hébert, CIO for George Brown College, the gigabit wireless links have performed flawlessly, even during Toronto’s worst snow storm in 60 years. “Had we decided to use leased lines for our networking solution, we would have easily spent a lot more and still not achieved the advantages that the GE60 links now provide,” he says. “BridgeWave’s secure and stable GE60 links have become our standard for connecting new buildings. Now we continually look for new ways to leverage BridgeWave’s ‘virtual fiber’ to fuel our network growth.”

“BridgeWave’s GigE products have allowed us to enhance and expand our solution offerings to provide wireless alternatives for performance‐demanding applications,” explains Carey Gibson, regional telecommunications manager for Trispec Communications. “Our ability to deliver true fiber data rates over the air ensures George Brown College will enjoy reliable transmission of voice, video and data across a completely converged network.”

According to Gregg Levin, chief marketing officer for BridgeWave Communications, as schools and colleges increase their reliance on communications technologies, there is a greater demand for high‐capacity, cost‐effective network solutions that can be easily deployed and managed. “Education is a natural fit for gigabit wireless solutions due to the need to inter‐connect multibuilding campuses and the importance of high‐capacity communications for delivering services to the educational community,” he says. “George Brown College’s use of this technology addresses fiber availability issues that are regularly encountered throughout the education sector.”

About BridgeWave Communications
Founded in 1999, BridgeWave Communications is the leading supplier of outdoor Gigabit wireless connectivity solutions. The company’s exclusive AdaptRate™ and AdaptPath™ technologies combined with its advanced Forward Error Correction capability deliver the highest availability at the longest distances for full-rate gigabit links. BridgeWave’s point-to-point, wireless solutions are widely deployed in mainstream enterprise and service provider network applications and are poised to play a key role in the migration to 4G mobile network backhaul. With the largest installed base of GigE radios worldwide, BridgeWave delivers the highest levels of product quality and reliability.