Broadband Possibilities
By Bob Saringer, Computer Support Specialist (saringer@cc.admin.unt.edu)
Those of you that have been with the University for any length of
time may have heard the words broadband local area network
before. This network was once, and for some, still is a way for computer
users to communicate with the Academic and Administrative mainframes,
UNIX hosts and departmental Novell servers.
Did you know that if you attached a television to one of the over
1,000
broadband local area network outlets you would find television
programming? Some of it might even be useful to you. Denton's local
cable TV provider, along with the Computing Center, provides this
programming as a service to the University free of charge. The Weather Channel, C-Span,
CNN Headline News and
NOAA
Weather Radar are all available for viewing.
Did you also know that if you attached a video camera to one of
these outlets and pointed it at yourself your best friend on the other
side of campus, if they tuned their TV to the correct channel, could see
how hard you're working? I guess this could be a good thing or a bad
thing.
Let's take this one step further. Your best friend on the other side
of campus could do the same thing. Of course each of you would have to
have a camera and a television to transmit and receive signals but you
could actually watch each other and converse in real time. Gee, what do
we have here, video teleconferencing? Who would've thought that could
happen on such an archaic broadband local area network? That old
thing? Why it's already bought and paid for and over 10 years old! I
thought we got rid of that piece of junk years ago! Please don't tell anyone
especially one of our sister universities, we might be the laughing
stock of the community!
Some Questions, Some Answers ...
Could something like this actually be a useful tool to the
university? That depends.
Would you like to attend a training class, conference, attend a sack
lunch or convocation without having to walk across campus or leave your
office? Do you have information to share with others that just doesn't
work in E-Mail form?
Would you like to monitor high security or high risk areas such as
where money is exchanged?
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