South Texas school children get lessons from Incite; Incite's Conversational Media gives new learning opportunities to students in border school district

Business Wire, August 20, 1996

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 20, 1996--In one of its largest distance learning installations to date, Incite's Conversational Media system has been chosen as the centerpiece of a wide-ranging network improvement project under way in a large South Texas school district.

The San Benito Independent School District is deploying Conversational Media systems at its 21 campuses and administrative buildings to improve internal communications and take curriculum offerings into the future for its nearly 9,000 students. Conversational Media will give teachers a whole new array of teaching tools including dial-up video conferencing, dial-up access to motion picture-quality movie clips, and easy Internet access, all from PCs in classrooms, libraries, and offices.

"This new network will allow these children access to cutting-edge technology that will allow them to visit places and do things they otherwise would never have a chance to do," said Chand Taneja, the district's technology coordinator. "We are in the process of putting together teams of teachers to develop educational programs that will leverage the system to its fullest extent."

Conversational Media is part of a larger project the district is undertaking to reduce communications cost and improve network performance and features. The school district secured low interest financing to pay for the system's deployment and anticipates retiring the debt with state grant funding.

The Texas legislature recently passed utility regulation legislation that requires the state's telecommunications service providers to make available $1.5 billion in funding to pay for telecommunications and technology infrastructure improvements for public schools and non-profit healthcare organizations. But even without the state money, Taneja said the new network will pay for itself through an anticipated $25,000 to $30,000 monthly savings in communication costs.

"This has been a particularly gratifying project for Incite," said David Tucker, Incite's general manager. "This whole project not only is a testament to our technology capabilities, but also points out how we can use technology to improve the lives of our children."

The district is replacing its antiquated telecommunications and data networks with a consolidated Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) network that will handle all of the district's voice, video and data traffic. Conversational Media systems will be installed initially in the libraries of each school and on the desktops of key administrators. The system's scalability will allow it to be expanded easily to classrooms and other locations as more funds become available.

"Incite is quickly becoming the network of choice for distance learning because of its powerful video capabilities and because it delivers the same features as asynchronous transfer mode at a fraction of the cost," said Michael Curtis, a network design engineer with ATE Business Telecom Solutions, the McAllen, Texas system integrator overseeing the network improvement project. "Incite's technology is so far ahead of everyone else out there that this was a no-brainer. When we started comparing price and performance of similar systems, Incite won hands down."

Requiring only a simple upgrade of hubs and servers, Conversational Media is deployable in any local area network or PBX environment to extend collaborative multimedia features and service throughout the enterprise network and across the wide area network. Conversational media also integrates seamlessly with the enterprise PBX and is the only system capable of extending PBX switching features to video.

Incite, based in Dallas, has designed and developed the industry's first true voice, video and data network platform deployable in LAN and PBX environments. Incite's modular network system is the first technology to converge all media and services on the desktop. Incite's standards-based technology offers the most comprehensive and cost-effective multimedia communications capabilities available. Incite is a division of Dallas-based Intecom, a premier supplier of telecommunications technology, and Matra Hachette, based in Paris.

CONTACT: Incite

David Tucker, 214/447-8565

dtucker@incite.com

or

MCCommunications Inc.

Jolie Newman, 214/480-8383

jolie_newman@mccom.com

or

Incite

Jerrie Rea, 214/447-8822

jrea@Incite.com