D-link has announced it developed customized solutions to meet the needs of the education sector including next generation networking and connectivity products at no extra cost.

"We are committed to helping the IT Departments of this sector deliver this value to students and educators with affordable high performing end-to-end networking tools," said Nick Tidd, vice president of sales for D-Link (News - Alert) Pan America and vice president of marketing for D-Link North America. “We also want to assure them that D-Link stands by its products for the long term, and continues to look for ways to provide additional services."

Officials at the company claim it is focussed on keeping a check on the pricing so that educational institutions can maximize whatever resources and funding that come their way. The modified technology meets the non-negotiable guidelines defined by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to enhance teacher effectiveness, mold students for college and careers, boost data gathering systems and bring low performing schools up to a bare minimum benchmark standard.

President Barack Obama has promoted the need for improving and restructuring the education system in the U.S. and more so from Kindergarten to the 12th grade (K-12).

“In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity - it is a pre-requisite,” said Obama. “The countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.”

He has backed these statements by signing into law the ARRA and by allotting nearly one eighth of ARRA’s fund allocation, which is approximately $ 100 billion out of the grand total of $ 787 billion, for education and related work.

"In today's economy, the education sector is looking for value in addition to performance, reliability and an unrivalled price, performance ratio," said Tidd.

The systems also include D-Link Green technology offering which includes an energy saving feature that has the ability to detect link status and network cable length and adjust power in accordance with that. In addition, it is able to identify a connected device link status and intelligently reduce power supply to the unused ports as well as powers down connected devices when appropriately configured.

St. Frances Borgia High School in Washington, Missouri updated its Wi-Fi network with D-Link wireless switches and access points to boost coverage and deliver improved wireless reliability, manageability and security, and its Green Technology allows for further energy conservation with the Wi-Fi scheduling feature, which enables users to program the times when Wi-Fi radio signals will be turned on and off.

"We are familiar with D-Link, we know they are reliable, and similar options were just ridiculously overpriced," said Stefan Adams, IT director for St. Frances Borgia High School. "Why use something else when D-Link will accomplish exactly the same thing for a quarter of the cost?"

D-Link said that its industry wide attached free offerings, assurances and guarantees also hold good for any educational institution and these include next business day replacement on defective products, free unlimited 1-800 local technical support, free product training, free network assessments, free firmware upgrades on all business class products, sales, engineering, technical and RMA support, plus a warehouse facility for immediate delivery.

A recent survey of technology leaders for kindergarten through to grade 12 (K-12) educational institutions found that 80 percent of respondents were interested in desktop virtualization as an implementable solution in school classrooms.

The survey also indicated more than 45 percent of respondents wanted delivery of applications and resources to the right students at the right time; more than 43 percent desired simple delivery of semester, quarter or course-based instructional applications and resources; and, 42 percent of respondents demanded reduction of IT costs by extending the lifecycle of existing hardware; while 42 percent preferred if IT personnel had more time to work on other projects.