It’s a great time to be at North Georgia

The North Georgia Alumni Council gave colleague Jeff Davis, associate VP for facilities, and me a graciously warm reception today as we updated the Council on some of the exciting changes to North Georgia’s facilities and IT infrastructure.

Here are a couple of bullet points from our presentations to the Alumni Council:

• $250 Million in construction wrapping up – New bookstore and new dining hall opening August 1, 2011!
• New online directory (http://northgeorgia.edu/directory), events calendar (http://northgeorgia.edu/events), maps (http://northgeorgia.edu/maps), mobile apps (http://m.northgeorgia.edu), VoIP telephony & more!
• New NetCommunity enhancements for Alumni (see the draft of the Reunions site at http://northgeorgia.org/reunions, with full Facebook and Twitter integration)
• North Georgia Network (http://northgeorgianetwork.com) fiber optic ultra-broadband project will reach campus in November 2011

Of course, the North Georgia Network is one my favorite topics to talk about lately. Here are some interesting facts about North Georgia’s connection to the Internet that you might not have known:

• In 2006, North Georgia College & State University had only a 30Mb Internet connection (10-20 DSL lines’ equiv.)
• Doubled in 2007 to 60 Mb, and again in 2009
• In 2011, doubled again to 250Mb
• North Georgia needs 1-10Gb speed over next 4 years
• The answer: North Georgia Network fiber ($43 Million, federally and state funded broadband project)

What does NGN bring to North Georgia?

• Two 1Gb connections in November 2011, scalable to multiple 10Gb links
• Will link Main Campus with Radar Ridge, Pine Valley/Hurricane Creek (and the Observatory), and Cumming/Forsyth County sites together with ‘dark’ and ‘lit’ fiber connectivity
• Distance learning opportunities, industrial & high-tech ultra-broadband support for our service region, & more

In short, NGN fiber will bring North Georgia to a level of Internet connectivity on par with the top universities in the world, including Georgia Tech – multiple 10Gbps connections with full redundancy (failover) direct to the Internet “hub” at 56 Marietta Street in Atlanta.