MEDIACOM-RELEASE-E-SURF-WIRELESS
E Surf Wireless Connects International Students
Students attending Auckland's Senior College of New Zealand are revelling at the speed of the Internet and e-mail
access, thanks to the school's newly installed E-surf Wireless connection.
Senior College is part of the umbrella Academic Colleges Group for students in Form five - Year 11 to Form seven -Year
13 and instructs 500 international and local students. Students come from all parts of the globe, ranging from China to
Germany and they are now in constant and readily accessible contact with their parents and relatives as a result of the
schools' investment in wireless technology. Senior College's IT manager Gordon Davidson believes the speed of the
wireless access takes the stress out of the students' lives.
"E-surf wireless is giving ready and unlimited access to a group of students who are away from home, studying in a
foreign country; it is now very easy for them to communicate with their parents," he said.
Use of the Internet also features heavily during teaching time at Senior College. Mr Davidson gives the example of
downloading experiments for the Chemistry class from Otago and international universities. The speed at which receiving
the answers took on the previous system did not enable students to feasibly use the experiments, now they can conduct
high level experiments and receive their results immediately.
Research assignments, frequently costly in terms of Internet access time, are now easier for students as downloading
time has been markedly quicker through the wireless application of E Surf wireless.
Senior College's Technical Director Ben Statham states that from a technical perspective E-surf Wireless is four and
half times faster and in real time it is ten times faster than their previous copper-wired connection.
Senior College values technology highly, with one computer available to every six students. They also realise that
students and staff are expecting more and more and the move to a wireless connection was merely natural, due to the
obvious benefits.
Davidson says support for E-surf Wireless is high. Students think it is `awesome', and staff are very happy with how
fast it is. The Deputy CEO of the Group, on return from Malaysia just `couldn't believe how fast it was'.
E-surf Wireless costs the Academic Colleges Group a flat rate per month for unlimited access for all staff and students.
The school opens at 7:30am and closes at 6pm, to enable students the time to correspond to family and research
assignments on the net.
"The wireless option is a natural application for Universities, Colleges and learning institutions were vast volumes of
data or research provide critical information for faculty and students alike," said E surf Wireless chief executive,
Michael Spencer.
"It's great to see New Zealand educational institutions enabling their students and teachers to communicate through, and
compete in the global knowledge economy on an equal footing, through the application of a cost effective, high speed
wireless Internet connection."
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