BITSConnect Initiative #1: The Gigabit backbone |
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The first BITSConnect initiative, completed in January 2004, a $1.5 million (Rs. 7 crores) project jointly led by BITS Alumni and BITS Pilani, resulted in a state-of-the-art campus wide network. Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Hon'ble President of India, inaugurated this core network – Neuron created by BITSConnect on March 20, 2004.
This first BITSConnect initiative provided BITS with a gigabit backbone, broadband access and telephones and video conferencing abilities (IP telephony) in every room in every bhawan (hostel), all staff quarters, the guest house, as well as wireless access in Sky and the Library.
BITSAA committed $750K for this first BITSConnect initiative and nearly the entire amount has been collected so far from alumni and friends across the globe
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Highlights |
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BITSConnect's first initiative, the Gigabit Backbone project, was a Rs 7 crore project and alumni funded half of it.
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BITSConnect is first in a series of alumni-driven projects to contribute to their alma mater.
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All teams (fundraising, finance, marketing and technical) were voluntary & they brought together alum across generations.
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BITSConnect Details |
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Technical Details |
Operational Details |
- (Core, distribution and access layers).
- More than 20 kilometers of cables.
- 2-4 Mbps WAN connectivity.
- 4000 voice-grade 10/100 access points over a Gigabit backbone.
- LRE (Long Range Ethernet) & Wireless Access (802.11b) available.
- Advanced routing technologies to manage ISP bandwidth across BITS campuses (Pilani, Goa, Dubai).
- Leading edge network security via DHCP snopping and Dynamic ARP inspection.
- VoIP Phones
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- All volunteer efforts.
- No overheads.
- Professionally managed & executed.
- Design expertise from Alumni.
- Resident experts from deployment partner for first 3 years.
- Student internship and training programs to support & maintain systems.
- Seed funding by BITS Pilani.
- Remainder of funds from BITS Alumni around the world.
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BITSConnect Impact |
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On Research |
On Teaching |
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IPv6 Research, in which BITS is already a national leader, will be boosted by BITSConnect.
- BITS Virtual University, the most technically advanced experiment in scaling distance education using state-of-the-art Internet and Multimedia Technologies, is going to run off the BITSConnect Infrastructure.
- BITS Multimedia Operating System & BITS Ubiquitous Computing Research initiatives get a fillip with BITSConnect
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Complete online courseware – hybrid delivery of on-campus education.
- Live video streaming of remote lectures to students rooms (e.g. Alum in US lecturing).
- Interactive real time multicasting of lectures (“virtually” reduce student-teacher ratio).
- Advanced educational & presentation systems, similar to the well-known ‘Wharton Lectern’ used at the Wharton School of Business.
- Distance learning –An effective distance learning program creates a unique financial model for BITS to be emulated by other institutions
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BITSConnect Core Team |
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Anita Agrawal |
Prof J.P Misra |
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BP Agrawal |
Subodh Mittal |
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Vinod Agrawal |
Venu Palaparthi |
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Sandeep Arora |
Pankaj Patel |
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Dr Rahul Banerjee |
Anand Rajaram |
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Shyamoli Banerjee |
Jayan Ramankutty |
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Hitesh Bhatnagar |
Deepu Rathi |
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Ashish Bhinde |
Rohit Sah |
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Mukul Chawla |
Vikram Shah |
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Satish Gupta |
Anupendra Sharma |
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Prem Jain |
Mani Sundaram |
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Roop Jain |
Prashant Vishwanathan |
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Karthik Krishna |
Yogesh Vaidya (STG) |
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Raj Khare |
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