ETS is committed to providing the best data infrastructure possible in Greenville County Schools. With the help of partners such as Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks, Dell computers and many others, ETS continually evaluates cabling installation practices and chooses only products and services that will not only perform to our expectations for today's needs but will carry with it the quality and warranties to last into the foreseeable future.
The District is committed to standardizing all structured network cabling and electronics that will provide top quality, flexibility, scaleable value and functionality not only for currents needs, but also meets the needs and requirements of the future.
The purpose of these standards is to provide an industry standard, structured network cabling and electronics design that will accommodate both the current and future data communications requirements for any given location within the District. Therefore, all designs and installations must comply with all BICSI, ANSI/TIA/EIA-568A codes and all TSB's including all other electrical, building, state and local codes and ordinances.
To ensure that cabling infrastructure meets the districts demands, ETS has taken many steps to ensure the quality of the systems that are installed such as:
- Standardization on high quality networking connectivity products.
- All cabling installations are designed and managed by a BICSI certified RCDD. Installers must be factory trained and certified to install the products.
- Copper cabling carries a manufactures 20-year end-to-end warranty while fiber optic cabling carries a manufacturers 15-year end-to-end warranty.
- Backbone cabling between closets is designed for current use as well as for future needs. The current standard for backbone cabling is an 18-strand fiber optic cable between closets in a star topology. 12 of these strands are multi-mode for today's use while 6 strands of single mode are left dark for use at a later date when greater speeds may require this technology.
- All network electronics are switched, capable of speeds of 100mbit, and carry a limited lifetime warranty.
- Backbone speeds when possible will use gigabit technology
ETS is also looking into newer technologies such as Wireless networking, terminal services, VLANs, Layer 3 switching technologies and VOIP and implementing them where applicable.