XO Communications (News - Alert) has been selected to provide a nationwide MPLS IP-VPN solution for Ottawa University, a higher education institution with six campuses located across four states.

Originally founded in Ottawa, Kansas in 1865, Ottawa University has since grown in student population, offerings and geographic locations.

Ottawa University now serves more than 7,000 students at the institution's residential campus in Ottawa, as well as its adult and professional studies campuses in Phoenix, Milwaukee, Kansas City and Jeffersonville, Indiana.

The XO solution will help Ottawa University achieve improved cost-efficiencies by converging voice and data traffic over a single IP network infrastructure and create a more scalable, application-aware wide area network to support the university's growing network needs due to its projected growth in student enrollment.

 

"XO Communications has designed a custom solution for Ottawa University that will enhance our network capacity, support the varying bandwidth speeds of our campuses and improve our overall communications efficiencies," said Jack Maxwell, PhD, director of information technology at Ottawa University.

Maxwell said that it also enables the university to leverage voice over IP and unified communications applications in a flexible and cost-effective way.

XO officials said that Ottawa University will utilize the company’s extensive nationwide Ethernet access footprint and the XO MPLS IP-VPN solution to connect its locations and support a wide range of applications that run across its network including dedicated Internet access, Voice over Internet Protocol, and Unified Communications (News - Alert) applications.

"XO's MPLS IP-VPN solution enables businesses to utilize bandwidth in the most efficient manner possible, thereby enabling customers like Ottawa University to maximize their network investment and minimize their operating costs," said David Paul, general manager for XO Communications in Phoenix.

Paul said that with XO's advanced MPLS-enabled IP network, the company is confident that Ottawa University's students, faculty, administrators and others will benefit from the university's new communications system.