Qwest Communications International Inc. announced a 5-year, $54 million deal Thursday that will provide ASU with more reliable data network, an ASU official said.
ASU University Technology Officer and Vice President Adrian Sannier said the deal will make Qwest the provider and manager of ASU’s communication network and will save the University nearly $1.5 million each year.
“We’re able to enhance network connectivity around campus to improve speed, to improve reliability and to improve access under the Qwest relationship,” he said.
Qwest spokesman Mark Molzen said the deal will provide ASU with industry-leading, enhanced and reliable connectivity over a converged voice and data network.
“ASU is setting an example for other universities in Arizona to follow in the area of technology, specifically in Internet access, voice communications and computing capabilities,” he said.
ASU first begin trying to identify a technology partner to help advance the University’s communication network when it chose Qwest to provide the infrastructure on the Downtown campus, Sannier said.
“That was very successful for us,” Sannier said. “It was our first deployment in a converged voice and data network. We had better connectivity there, higher bandwidth and we also experienced better reliability.”
After giving Qwest responsibility of the Downtown campus, ASU employed the company to provide Wi-Fi at many of the Tempe campus’ residence halls and to convert most of the Polytechnic campus to a single network last year.
“It was at that point that we figured we had enough experience to think about a [communication] partner,” Sannier said.
Prior to the deal, ASU managed its own network, Sannier said.
“The kind of infrastructure that [Qwest] was able to deploy exceeded our own abilities,” Sannier said. “Technology moves on, and these guys are in a much better position to provide these kind of network services at a scale that ASU couldn’t reach.”
Biological sciences freshman Kimberly Jaggers, an ASU employee at the Tempe Computing Commons Atrium, said it doesn’t really matter who manages the University’s communications network to her.
“I’m okay with [Qwest] as long as the Internet is working and everyone can get what they need from the computer,” Jaggers said.
A reliable network is very important to students who use the Computing Commons to work, Jaggers said.
“A lot of these students are out-of-state or out-of-country and are coming here to get an education, and if [Computing Commons doesn’t] have Internet, they can’t access their homework,” she said.
Sannier said the new unified network gives ASU more resources to deal with reliability problems.
“Universities, for a variety of different reasons, suffer connectivity issues,” he said. “What we’ve done in this deal is expand the resources that we have to counter those attacks and to gain a partner with global reach who really can help us to increase our reliability.”
Sannier said the University is very interested and open to hearing what students think about the reliability of the communication network.
“ASU runs a very reliable network, but we need to get that reliability even greater,” he said. “This partnership we expect will help us with diagnosing the problems and correcting them.”
Reach the reporter at salvador.rodriguez@asu.edu.
