By Tania Faulkner

You have probably seen the “Pardon our dust, network infrastructure refresh underway” building signs around campus and wondered what they mean. The campus has received final approval to upgrade and refresh the campus network in five years.

The network infrastructure will be made modern by upgrading the cabling and network equipment in campus buildings to support new and enhanced services and future communication technology innovations. Such services could include multimedia collaborations and the latest and greatest wireless technologies. The refreshed network will also improve connectivity speeds, performance, reliability, and security.

The network infrastructure upgrades to the Energy Research Facility, the Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Building, the Computer and Space Sciences Building, Fraternity/Sorority Row 1, 3, 8, and 10, Somerset Hall, and Talbot Hall are complete. The network infrastructure upgrades in Worcester Hall, the Animal Sciences/Agricultural Engineering Building, and LeFrak Hall are currently underway. A dedicated network refresh project management team has been assembled to refresh the remaining campus buildings within a five-year timeframe. OIT worked with the Network Refresh Advisory Committee (NRAC) and Facilities Planning to develop a five-year building refresh schedule. Refresh of the initial set of buildings under the five-year plan is expected to begin during fall 2009.

www.oit.umd.edu/networkrefresh