Linking AppleTalk nets via long-distance Ethernet solution - Colorado's Weld County School District improves network performance on a limited budget

Communications News, March, 1994

With more than 2,500 students and a four-building campus, the Weld County School District, roughly 25 miles north of Denver, Colo., needed to find ways to improve its network work performance on a limited budget.

Sharing resources would save dollars, but the campus would need to upgrade from AppleTalk to 10-Mb/s Ethernet speed to take full advantage of the applications.

Fortunately, four years earlier, the district's computer specialist had the foresight to bury 2.5-inch conduit containing six-pair of level-two, voice-grade, unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable between all of the buildings.

But, since 10Base-T wasn't feasible given the distances between the buildings, reaching Ethernet speeds seemingly meant having to replace the cable with fiber or thinnet. So after glancing at the $10,000-plus estimate to pull new cable, and not wanting to deal with the possibility of asbestos in the ceilings of the elementary school, the district's computer specialist began scrambling for a solution that could take advantage of the existing wire already in the conduit.

Using Tutankhamon's XL1500 Series of Long Distance Ethernet Repeaters, the computer specialist was able to connect the entire campus using just one pair of the existing telephone wire installed years earlier. An XL1500 in the middle- and high-school buildings were linked via the buried conduit to an XL1502 in the elementary school building. The longest stretch ran from the far end of the middle school, underground to the administration building, then on to the elementary school situated on the other side of Reynolds Street. Although that span passes through the adminstration building's conduit, it does not tap into that building's system.

Alternatively, for secutiry purposes, a LocalTalk connection links the administration building to the middle school, and via a router to the rest of the network.

Because Tutankhamon's long-distance Ethernet repeaters can span up to 1,500 feet, students in any building can connect to the library, while the faculty can keep track of grades, attendance and reports.

Now, with over 80 CPUs online in the tech labs of the high schools and middle schools, the district can share files and applications so there's enough budget for the equipment and software to teach the students about CAD, telecommunications the desktop publishing.

And since the computer specialist who had originally buried the conduit already knew where the spare wires were, the entire job took about two hours and saved the district thousands of dollars.