Texas A&M-San Antonio completes $9.6M BTOP fiber project

Texas A&M University's San Antonio campus now has even more bandwidth to conduct business as on Tuesday it wrapped up construction of a new $9.6 million fiber network connection for its new South Side campus facility.

This new fiber connection was made possible through a $6.6 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grant with $3.3 million in matching funds from the Trans-Texas Videoconference Network (TTVN), a network provider that serves the Texas A&M University System, and its service provider partner VTX Communications.

One of the immediate impacts of the new fiber connection will be faster connection speeds for faculty and students.

Although the San Antonio campus consists of just one main building today, the new fiber-based connection will be able to serve all of the buildings that will eventually be part of the university's campus. Right now, Texas A&M is in the process of constructing two additional buildings that the fiber connection will serve.

Texas A&M University-San Antonio president Maria Hernandez Ferrier said that the new network will enable it to scale and expand its current network and access not only the public Internet, but more importantly Research & Education (R&E) networks, including Internet2, National LambdaRail and Texas Intranet data services.

In addition to providing support for R&E activities, the TTVN network provides collaboration tools such as video conferencing services and associated tools, including multipoint video conference bridging, ISDN/IP gateways, live and archive webcasting, and video conference equipment repair.

Timing for this network connection comes at a time when Texas A&M University-San Antonio's enrollment continues to grow, after becoming a separate campus in 2009. For the 2012 fall semester, enrollment rose 16.7 percent to 4,133 students.

For more:
- San Antonio Business Journal has this article

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