Students of De La Salle Lipa are set to enjoy top-class I.T. amenities this schoolyear, with several high-priority projects either due for implementation or recently implemented.
First, the school has upgraded its Internet bandwidth from two to three E1's, or a total capacity of 6 MBPS. The acquisition of a third E1 was made in anticipation of increased student demand for bandwidth after the activation of several wireless "hotspots" in the college.
With the third E1 due for deployment by ISP Pacific Internet later this June, students can expect to continue enjoying an average bandwidth allotment of 100 kbps per computer, even on the theoretical premise that all 600 computers connected to the Internet are either uploading or downloading data.
The bandwidth per computer ratio ranks among the best in the country, ensuring that DLSL students get fast Internet transactions while surfing the World Wide Web, reading and sending e-mail or, perhaps, while engaged in IRC or developing personal blogs or web sites.
The school has also acquired two new IBM servers which will provide e-mail services to Level 4 to 10 students of the Integrated School as well as to all students of the College. Each of these students are will be given individual e-mail accounts under the school's domain name dlsl.edu.ph.
Only employees were previously granted official e-mail accounts.
Finally, the school has also initiated the process of acquiring 400 brand new industry standard computers, each powered by Intel 3.0 gigahertz processors. The computers, to be delivered on a staggered basis, are to replace aging computers in laboratories.
The new computers will also bring to 800, by the end of the schoolyear, the total number of workstations connected to the Internet, not including wireless devices brought to campus by students, faculty and staff.
This means that only a fraction of the school's 1,000 or so PC's, all running on Microsoft-licensed Windows operating systems, remain unconnected to the Internet.