Texas tips its hat to education - Government Activity

Communications News, Nov, 1999 by Carren Bersch

Phonoscope Ltd. (www.phonoscope.com) has completed its final installation of a 96-mile district-wide high-speed fiber-optic local area network (LAN) connecting the main administration building to 48 school campuses in the Cy-Fair Independent School District (ISD) (www.cy-fair.isd.tenet.edu). Located in Northwest Houston, Cy-Fair ISD serves students from residential areas in or near Bear Creek, Eldridge Parkway, Katy, Jersey Village, Hempstead, Copperfield, Cypress, Willowbrook, Champion Forest, and others. Cy-Fair personnel and students now have easy access to distance-learning classes, educational resources on the Internet, district-wide e-mail communication, video/voice and data conferencing, and faster use of administrative-support systems already in place. The network's construction began in July 1998 and was fully operational by April of this year. Its backbone was designed to accommodate 13 new campuses currently planned by the district for construction over the next five years, starting in 2000.

"Cy-Fair ISD's LAN is the largest of any Harris County public school network to date utilizing internal administrative, student, and teacher networking capabilities at all elementary, middle, and senior high campuses," says Lee Cook of Phonoscope. "Because the network is operational 24 hours a day year round, teachers and students can make everyday use of worldwide Internet connections, educational discussion groups, databases, software, and other information sources, such as Web sites of libraries and museums." Phonoscope recently completed a district-wide fiber-optic WAN for the La Porte ISD, just east of Houston, and was the first company in the U.S. to have installed a similar network during the mid- 1950s for Galveston Public Schools.

Circle 264 for more information from Phonoscope Ltd.