Victorian Department of Education Teams with Cisco for Wireless Network

Cisco Systems® has teamed up with the Victorian Department of Education & Training to deploy the largest wireless local-area network (WLAN) in the Asia Pacific region, for Victorian public schools.

This initiative, known as the Wireless Networks for Schools (WiNS) program, will equip more than 1,600 Victorian public schools with high-speed, wireless access to information, including Internet and intranet resources with industry-leading security.

The $A6 million WiNS program is being implemented by the Victorian Department of Education & Training, Cisco® and IBM-Logicalis, in conjunction with a team of approximately 340 field technicians contracted by the Department.
Minister for Education Services, Jacinta Allan, said the Wireless Networks for Schools initiative will improve the ability of schools to use information and computer technologies, providing more flexible, mobile and creative approaches to learning with and about computers.

Working with systems integrator IBM-Logicalis, Cisco was able to offer the scalability, security and centralised management capabilities on its wireless devices that the department needed to provide wireless networking on such a large scale and within its budget requirements.

The Department of Education's security regime for the wireless network will integrate with the Cisco access points and help ensure that users can authenticate on their network. This feature will help prevent unauthorised users from using the schools' Internet capacity.