A cabling installation team is now completing the voice and data network infrastructure for a major communications project for the Forsyth County Board of Education, resulting in one of the first fully integrated technology classroom programs in Georgia.
Fifteen installers from Busker Com munications are completing the installation of voice, data and video cabling for all 24 Forsyth County schools, including voice and data nodes for the newly constructed Otwell Middle School.
"On the cabling side, with the amount of infrastructure they placed, they now have the ability to put more workstations inside the classrooms instead of having students fight over keyboard time," says Bobby Busker, president of the Norcross, GA.-based Busker Communications.
The installation will let teachers in each classroom have their own phone and a computer notebook, and will allow for 11,000 computers in 24 schools. "We just see it as a better way to integrate technology," says Bailey Mitchell, executive director of technology services for the Forsyth County School District. "Teachers feel more comfortable than if they had to go into a lab."
Parents will be able to use the system, too. They can go online, see what homework assignments have been given, and learn what their children are expected to do.
The plan was designed to create what the school district refers to as a "distributed model" for classroom computing; that is, technology equipment is distributed in each classroom, giving each room at least four computers. Thirty notebook computers are also configured as a portable lab that can be used in any classroom or training setting.
Busker Communications was chosen for the job because its installers are trained in a variety of telecom services, including structured cabling systems, optical-fiber backbone infrastructure, LAN/WAN electronics, and outside plant construction.
The installers provided a mulitmode optical-fiber backbone that ran from the main distribution frame to the intermediate distribution frame (IDF) located throughout each school. Category 5e cable was used for the job, and it was terminated using eight-pin connector jacks at each station. The project called for between 500 and 900 cable drops.
The installation team worked in both new build situations and retrofits. The project included the construction or upgrade of the LAN for each school, using each LAN to create a WAN for the entire school system.