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Blazing New Communication Trails
9/1/2004
We initially positioned the Metro GigE connection to the university as a cost-saving initiative. If you have a strong relationship with your telecommunications provider, such as the one we have with Lightpath, you actually make them a partner that can show you how to add service without adding cost. The additional cost-cutting allowed LIU to have the funds to invest in a back-up fiber optic provider in case of primary link failure.
For example, Lightpath provided Long Island University with an analysis of the pre-GigE inter-campus telephone patterns that helped us build the case for a GigE investment. With Lightpath’s help, we identified approximately $2,000 that was being spent on calls going from Southampton to Brooklyn each month and nearly as many coming back from the Brooklyn campus during the same period. That analysis helped us sell the pitch for the Metro GigE investment because we could prove that the initial outlay would eventually recoup—in Brooklyn/ Southampton telephone calls alone—nearly $4,000 a month.
It’s imperative to have a vendor that has a staff capable of delivering according to your individual topography. One of the ways we did that with Lightpath was to go to technical meetings with their senior engineers. In doing so, we became confident that Lightpath could deliver what we expected of them. These site visits were extremely important as they enabled us to see firsthand how their Network Operations Center was run. In addition, we were able to observe a site at which a similar initiative had been rolled out. It was an invaluable part of the process.
Ultimately, by looking backward and forward with equal measure, and by trusting the right partner, the road ahead wasn’t so much about doing more with less, as is so often the case these days, but rather doing more for less.
George Baroudi (george.baroudi@liu.edu) is chief information officer at Long
Island University.
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