Cisco
Systems will provide networking solutions for Hong Kong schools
amounting to over HK$3 million (US$387,000) in business.
Part of the Hong Kong Government’s
pilot scheme for developing IT in education, the US networking giant is
filling orders for its products through its partners, Hongkong Telecom CSL and Datacraft Asia.
“Hong Kong is at the threshold of a boom in computer-assisted education,”
said Frankie Sum, North Asia managing director of Cisco Systems.
“The fact that the SAR Government is investing heavily in
teacher training augurs well for the future and compliments initiatives
such as the Cisco Network Academy program that are geared toward
students,” added Sum.
The SAR Government has committed more that 2.9 billion (US$375 million)
Hong Kong dollars to
develop the networking infrastructure in Hong Kong’s schools over the next
four years.
The schools participating in the government’s pilot scheme range from
primary schools with around 700 pupils to secondary schools with more than
1,200 pupils.
The size of the networks range from installations of around
100 nodes at one of the smaller primary schools to secondary school
installations with more than network 500 nodes.
Each school is deploying a two-tier network infrastructure with a
high-speed backbone network supporting communication between classrooms,
the schools’ network servers and the Internet.
Local area networks (LANs) within each classroom are linked to the backbone
network and handle connection of individual PCs and printers.