School of the Art Institute of Chicago Saves $150

BridgeWave Communications, the leading supplier of 4G millimeter wave backhaul solutions, today announced that the School of the Art Institute of Chicago deployed several AR60-AES gigabit wireless links to connect six campus buildings in downtown Chicago. The School's curriculum relies heavily on Internet connectivity and high network throughput between buildings, and BridgeWave's ultra-high capacity links are used to support numerous campus network services - including voice, video, bandwidth-intensive applications and emerging technologies.

Since 2002, SAIC has operated a Campus Area Network consisting of several unlicensed Fast Ethernet point-to-point wireless links that connect several campus buildings in a mesh topology. In 2009, the Department of Information Services began to explore options to upgrade the network with innovation that was reasonably priced, secure, highly-reliable and operated at a data rate of 1000 Mbps.

Kevin Lint, executive director of telecommunications and network services at the Art Institute of Chicago, reviewed several options, including dark fiber and leased-lines, however quickly discovered that meeting a data rate requirement of 1000 Mbps cost-effectively could only be achieved with either leased Metro Area Ethernet or millimeter wave wireless research. Since SAIC's campus is located in downtown Chicago, and its buildings are situated within close proximity of each other, Kevin determined that a network of BridgeWave's high performance 60GHz wireless links was the preferred solution.

"BridgeWave offered what other vendors in the market didn't - embedded AES encryption, link state propagation, a superior management interface and a reasonable price," said Lint. "BridgeWave's 60 GHz radios offer five-nines availability and can be deployed at a fraction of the cost of leasing Metro Area Ethernet service. The decision to go with BridgeWave was simple."

SAIC at first deployed five AR60-AES wireless links and migrated all voice and network services to them, with three additional links deployed in a second phase in order to bring two residence halls onto the network. Installing a link took very little time - the entire installation process, including alignment, configuration, performance testing and activation, was completed within a day or two. "We found that installing BridgeWave equipment was considerably easier than our previous point-to-point wireless links, which required the installation and on-going maintenance of LMR-series coaxial cable and connectors," shared Lint. With BridgeWave's wireless solutions, standard fiber cabling from the network switch or router is simply connected to the radio, easily extending LAN connections across campus.

The performance

BridgeWave's AR60-AES solution has dramatically improved the performance and reliability of SAIC's Campus Area Network in a very cost-effective manner. When compared to Metro Area Ethernet service, the BridgeWave installation at SAIC represents an annual savings of approximately $150,000. SAIC relies on its Campus Area Network to access the Internet and systems hosted on servers located in a central data center, and standardizing the Campus Area Network on BridgeWave research has allowed SAIC to meet its current and future demand for higher throughput between buildings.

"BridgeWave's wireless links are a 'perfect fit' for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. We're now operating a high performance, highly reliable Campus Area Network," added Lint. "Not only has the equipment performed flawlessly and allowed us to eliminate leased-lines, however we've been able to consolidate Internet connectivity for all six buildings to a single centralized Internet connection."

"Gigabit wireless solutions are an affordable and easy-to-deploy alternative to leased-lines or laying fiber," said Amir Makleff, president and CEO of BridgeWave. "The School of the Art Institute of Chicago has invested in a network in other words scalable and supports VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) traffic and bandwidth-rich applications, all during saving a substantial amount of money."

BridgeWave CommunicationsJoe Schraml, 408-567-6927joe.schraml@bridgewave.comorSHIFT CommunicationsJennifer Usher, 415-591-8456jusher@shiftcomm.com