UNIVERSITY of Queensland has flicked the switch on a multi-million dollar network upgrade that includes the rollout of a high-definition videoconferencing system.
The university will deploy six Cisco TelePresence studios and units over the next 18 months across a range of sites including its Gatton agriculture campus located on a mountain 90 kilometres west of Brisbane.

UQ will also upgrade its network to the latest 802.11n networking standard to provide high-speed connectivity for up to 70,000 students, staff, alumni and local high school students.

The videoconferencing installation would initially be used for administrative purposes but there are plans to use it for teaching purposes in the future, according to UQ director of information technology services Nick Tate.

Mr Tate declined to reveal the exact cost of the exercise but said the university will acquire about 2000 new Cisco switches and 3500 access points as part of the deal.

The new network is also being used for grid computing, he said.

"We have many thousands of PCs that aren’t doing anything when the students aren’t in the labs," Mr Tate said. "The faster network enables us to then provide more capacity into research by connecting those PCs together as a grid.”

"People have started using that and we’re already solving some engineering research problems.”

A dozen nearby high schools have been given access to UQ's network -- a move that Mr Tate hopes will attract potential students.

"They get access to different university experiments and we’re able to provide university content.

"These are prospective university students getting an idea of the sort of things we’re doing," he said.