Fulton-Montgomery Community College Deploys VBricks to Deliver Campus-Wide Video Feeds

Business Wire, Nov 14, 2000

Business/Technology Editors

WALLINGFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 14, 2000

VBrick Systems, Inc. an innovator in low-cost TV-quality video networking products, said today that Fulton-Montgomery Community College (FMCC), part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, has deployed 36 VBricks in its network to provide educational and informational programming across its campus. FMCC has also installed VBricks to replace its current distance learning rooms and to provide campus video security monitoring.

FMCC retained Annese & Associates to assess a new network architecture designed by Kevin Ross, Assistant Dean of Institutional Technology at FMCC, to enable the delivery of video across the campus network. Annese recommended the installation of VBricks to deliver video feeds to the campus network.

As FMCC began to install its VBricks it became apparent that the VBrick network video appliance could deliver more than just informational feeds. FMCC recognized that it could afford to purchase additional VBricks to deliver educational feeds directly to its classrooms. FMCC connected its VBricks to its 100BaseT switched Ethernet network, then centrally located its VCRs, DVD players and satellite television feeds in the campus library. Now professors can call the library to request a specific program and using a simple remote control, similar to the remote control from a television, select the program they want to watch. This has helped FMCC reduce its costs caused by lost or stolen videos and DVDs. Additionally, programs can be designated for rebroadcast and can be fed to any monitor on campus for make-up or review.

"The VBricks have been very stable and reliable, in fact, the first six VBricks FMCC received were connected to our security system and have been running 24/7 for six months without a single failure," said Kevin Ross, Assistant Dean of Institutional Technology for Fulton-Montgomery Community College.

"FMCC is an example of the power of VBricks. Because of its low purchase price, extremely simple installation and maintenance and minimal network bandwidth requirements, organizations are realizing they can deploy VBricks throughout the organization to deliver high-quality, two-way video and audio conferencing as well as traditional one-way educational and informational video feeds," said Richard Mavrogeanes, president and founder of VBrick Systems, Inc.

Distance Learning -- The Surprise Application

While deploying its VBricks around campus it also became apparent that VBricks were ideal for distance learning applications. FMCC had a distance learning room that it had set-up over two years earlier. The room cost about $140,000 to build and cost about $4,000 per month to maintain. Additionally, because of the proprietary nature of the wide-area network in which FMCC participated, FMCC could only connect with schools in its Eastern New York State region. Now using VBricks and relatively low-cost T1 wide-area connections, FMCC is building eight distance learning rooms for about $40,000 per room. FMCC expects maintenance costs to be less than $1,000 per room per month, mostly in the cost of the T1 circuits. And this system allows FMCC to connect to any school, anywhere in the world.

"Our old distance learning system had severe limitations when it came to usefulness. Because of its complexity and unreliability, the legacy distance learning rooms have only been used successfully, twice, a cost of nearly $46,000 per class." said Kevin Ross, FMCC Assistant Dean of Institutional Technology. Our distance learning implementation has been so successful that schools in our district as well as other SUNY universities are asking for assistance setting-up their own VBrick-based distance learning systems," Mr. Ross continued.

MPEG is the networking industry standard for transmitting high-quality video and audio across IP and ATM networks. Unlike other compression schemes, it provides full motion, 30 frames per second video. Until recently, MPEG was used only used by broadcasters to carry TV-quality video. Now, with products like the VBrick, which cost under $5000, MPEG can be used for many applications such as video conferencing, distance learning, telemedicine and surveillance.

About VBrick Systems

VBrick Systems, Inc. has as its mission to enable customers to deliver quality vision across their networks through innovation in the size, cost, functionality and quality of its networking products. The company designs, manufactures, and markets affordable high-performance audio/video networking systems for broadband and wideband network applications. VBrick Systems provides true TV-quality video and CD-quality audio on an end-to-end basis for video conferencing, distance learning, remote monitoring, video-on-demand and video authoring applications. The company is located in Wallingford, Connecticut USA. Its products are distributed through industry-leading value-added resellers, system integrators and distributors. Additional information can be found at the VBrick web site www.vbrick.com.