In planning for a new school with regards to today's technology, Web 2.0 applications are increasingly gaining popularity. Applications like Facebook, MySpace, Moodle, Blackboard, Second Life, and many more are becoming very popular - and some are slowly seeing some use in the classroom and yielding positive results. Some of these applications make very frequent use of streaming audio, video along with images, video chat, and other major media features. These features require a tremendous amount of bandwidth to perform effectively, efficiently, and without distraction.
This is why I believe it is very important for us as an educational institution to be on the forefront of this new technology. Since we are building, we have the perfect opportunity to implement the required infrastructure right from the start. Up until recently, we have been using Category 5e network cable which supports up to 100MHz of bandwidth. Category 6 cable is the next generation of wired technology and presents us with the following advantages. Category (Cat) 6 network cable supports up to 200MHz available bandwidth which means for applications like Second Life, and video chats, there will be less noise and transfer loss and stronger signal. Cat 6 cable is much more reliable since it allows for this greater rate of transfer. Cat 6 is backward compatible with Cat 5 applications which is why experts are predicting that 80 to 90 percent of all new installations will utilize Cat 6 cable. This means that all current applications will show improvements in performance and pave the way for more demanding next generation applications.
In terms of physical installation, it is not practical to install Cat 5e cable even if we plan to upgrade to Cat 6 since it is very difficult and expensive to install new cable behind walls, in ducts, under floors, and other difficult places. Now you may also have heard of fiber optic technology. Fiber Optic technology essentially offers the same advantages and in some aspects to a greater degree. However, optical technology is still very expensive and is not a responsible move. Cat 6 cable will give us many years of successful use of Web 2.0 applications for less money than optical cable. But Cat 6 is necessary to keep our educational institution on the cutting edge of successful use of technology in the classroom.
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Bobby, I agree with you that we are having more and more applications, such as the ones you mentioned here, that requires high bandwidth. Most web 2.0 applications can run on existing networking without having to upgrade to faster Cat 6 or even Cat 5e. On the other hand there is whole new development that is known as Internet2 that focus on development of leading edge, revolutionary Internet technologies.
Hi booby, i have learned something new form your post. we can replace cat 6 to fiber optic technology.thanks. i agree that tech directors need to be a little bit far sighted, by this we can save money,work force, and also time
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