Top Colombian university in Medellin sets store by micro-switches “Made in Germany”
The ITM (Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano) in Medellin has a reputation extending beyond the borders of Colombia as one of the top universities in South America. The number of students enrolled there has been rising for years, with the result that over 24,000 now attend the university in Colombia’s second-largest city. Its governors decided to modernize and expand the university to safeguard the quality of research and education long term. The decentralized micro-switches from MICROSENS, a subsidiary of euromicron AG, help deliver a powerful new network. They enable a cost-effective, very efficient and high-quality infrastructure to be created.
As one of the first modernization projects, the university’s governors decided to establish a completely new network for all lecture theaters and computer rooms. They were to be connected with Gigabit Ethernet and equipped with IP telephony. The customer’s requirements for the solution were: high bandwidth, connection of existing IP telephones to the network, use of copper cabling that had already been partially ordered, and reduction of the cable connections between the central technical room and lecture theaters.
The original idea of a structured network in star topology was soon rejected in favor of the powerful and compact micro switches. These can be installed quickly in the cable duct or floor box and significantly reduce cabling complexity, since four terminal devices are now connected by switch via an uplink. That on its own reduced the copper cables laid and the number of central switching ports to a quarter. The new solution therefore saves a lot of space in cable ducts or shafts. The lower number of cables also has advantages from the perspective of fire prevention, since the fire load is reduced. In addition, less fire-resistant sealing of the cable paths and smaller wall cut-outs are necessary when laying cables through fire compartments.
The use of PoE-enabled installation switches means that connecting the existing IP telephones is no problem. All IP phones can be connected directly to the network via the switches. The IP telephones with a power or 5 or 9 W are supplied with electricity directly by the network cable. As part of the modernization work, a total of 1,500 connection points at the university will be equipped with MICROSENS technology by the end of 2019.
Frank Konrad, Managing Director of MICROSENS GmbH, is delighted at the cooperation: “For more than 20 years, we’ve pursued a decentralized switching approach that offers a perfect combination of technical and economic advantages. We’re proud that our solutions are now also being used at the ITM, one of South America’s top universities.”
