Hertford Regional College (HRC) is enabling creative arts and industries students to produce music and films in its new media suite thanks to a Next Generation Network from Virgin Media Business. High-speed connections at HRC’s two new buildings on its Broxbourne and Ware campuses enable 14,000 students and 1,000 members of staff to benefit from internet cafes, IT and Apple Mac suites. The network also supports specialist business centres, and engineering and motor vehicle workshops.
One of the largest further education colleges in Hertfordshire, HRC opened its new buildings in September 2009. The aim of the college’s £63 million redevelopment project was to change the face of vocational learning in the area and provide students with skills that are transferable to the workplace. In the new motor vehicle and engineering training facility, the managed Ethernet Wide Area Network (WAN) supports interactive display panels, teaching hardware and software and CAD suites. Regardless of their location, students can also access streamed video lectures for all of the college’s courses.
The new network underpins an electronic registration system that records when students have entered their classroom. This system keeps track of vehicles entering HRC’s car parks, provides authorised staff and students with access to the buildings and only allows students to enter areas of the buildings that are relevant for their courses. As well as access control, the high speed network supports all internet and email services across HRC’s two main campuses and satellite locations and an IP telephony system enables free calls across all sites.
“The redevelopment of HRC was all about providing young people and adults with some of the best learning facilities in the country,” said Dr Daniel Hidlebaugh, network services manager at Hertfordshire Regional College. “With our network forming the foundation of our new IT and media suites and playing a vital role in the delivery of e-learning tools and security facilities, resilience and speed were vital. Our Virgin Media Business team worked with us throughout the project and had the can-do attitude required to deliver our innovative project on time.”
“Many colleges are turning to technology to provide students with a more hands-on learning experience and prepare them for the skills required in the workplace,” said Gerry Arthurs, head of public sector south at Virgin Media Business. “With its motor vehicle, construction and electrical workshops as well as TV and music studios, Hertfordshire Regional College is a shining example of how further education institutes can use technology to create a more interactive and collaborative education environment for today’s digital generation.”
With technology playing such a vital role in the everyday running of HRC, the 1 Gigabit-per-second network enables cross-site reporting and ensures that in the event of one campus experiencing an outage, networked services to the other campus will continue running.
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About Virgin Media Business
Virgin Media Business is the UK’s only telco with a nationwide fibre optic Next Generation Network. Launched in February 2010, the company aims to bring the Virgin philosophy to the business telecoms market. Providing innovative, high quality solutions built on brilliant customer service.
Virgin Media Business is the largest business-to-business brand in the Virgin group. With a strong product portfolio that includes its market leading Ethernet services. It uses its network asset in order to create bespoke tailored telecoms solutions for its customers. Employees are located at 40 offices across the UK, allowing Virgin Media Business to be closer to its customers in every sense.
Previously known as ntl:Telewest Business, organisations working with Virgin Media Business include London City Airport, Arqiva, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Partnership and South West Water.
About Virgin Media
With almost 10 million customers, Virgin Media is the UK's first quad-play provider of broadband, TV, phone and mobile.
The company is one of the largest residential broadband providers in the UK, using a unique fibre optic cable network to deliver next generation ultrafast internet access of up to 50Mb to just over half of all homes. Combined with a high speed ADSL service and mobile broadband products, Virgin Media is able to offer broadband internet access to virtually the entire country.
Virgin Media has the UK’s most advanced TV on demand service and is the only TV platform to carry BBC iPlayer. It is the second largest provider of pay TV, was the first to launch a high definition TV service and offers a high-specification, HD-ready V+ personal video recorder.
The company operates the most popular virtual mobile network in the UK which, when launched, was the world’s first such mobile phone service. It is also one of the largest fixed-line home phone providers in the country.
Virgin Media also owns Virgin Media Television (VMtv) which runs seven entertainment channels, including Virgin1, LIVING, Bravo and Challenge. VMtv is a 50 per cent joint partner with BBC Worldwide in UKTV, which consists of ten channels including Dave, G.O.L.D., Watch and Alibi.
With operations based entirely in the UK, Virgin Media Inc. is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (VMED) and the London Stock Exchange (VMED).
For more information, go to http://www.virginmedia.com/
