Implementation Case Study GIGA School Kawachinagano City Board of Education

Building High-performance GIGA School Concept Environments with Highly Reliable Cat6A UTP Cables Made by Panduit Why a wiring environment from a sole manufacturer was adopted to produce high transmission quality in the educational space over the long term

Situated in the extreme southeast of Prefecture, Kawachinagano City is a regional city with a population of about 100,000, bordering the Kongo Mountain Range and Nara Prefecture to the east, and the Izumi Mountain Range and to the south. The municipality's territory is 70% covered in forest, with an abundance of cultural heritage sites remaining among ample natural environs. Known as a town where the Middle Ages can still be encountered, it is also the third in the nation to declare education as a key priority. Kawachinagano City made the application of ICT environments a focus of its educational effort early on, adopting tablet computers for elementary and middle school educators, installing projectors and large-screen TVs in classrooms, and offering international exchange classes using teleconferencing systems. As implementation of the GIGA School concept has been hastened amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the city has carried out an upgrade of its internal school networks, including the uniform use of Panduit products for network wiring to build infrastructure that will provide high-performance transmission into the future.

As efforts toward the GIGA School concept were accelerated, the decision was promptly made to implement a total renovation of the educational network environment Points Given the critical importance of wiring quality to maintaining high-speed network environment performance over the long term The city built a GIGA School environment in advance of other cities

Imple- As Efforts Toward the GIGA School Concept were mentation Accelerated, the Decision was Promptly Made to Implement a History Total Renovation of the Educational Network Environment

Hiroo Yamasaki, Education General Affairs Section Manager for the Education Promotion Department of the Kawachinagano City Board of Education Office, explains the how the project was implemented. "Our city has made use of the School New Deal policy enacted by the government in 2009, proactively establishing facilities such as LAN and terminals within schools in advance of other cities. Amid the ongoing trend toward low birthrates and an aging population, we had been searching for ways to advance the utilization of ICT for education in the midst of shrinking tax revenues. As we did so, the circumstance of an accelerated GIGA Kawachinagano City School concept accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic emerged." Board of Education Toward the GIGA School concept goal of making one network terminal device available to each student, about 1,072 terminals were distributed among the city's schools. Kawachinagano City promptly determined that it would renovate the internal wireless Address: networks within its schools while supplying the remaining 5,586 terminals by the end of the fiscal year. Takuji Hayakawa, a data 1-1-1 Haracho, Kawachinagano specialist for the Education General Affairs Section, Education Promotion Department, , explains the criteria that were considered. City, "In our city, we have moved forward with a three-year expansion plan that started in 2016, establishing wireless LAN environments Number of schools: 20 (13 elementary, 7 junior high within our schools in line with the schedule laid out in the School New Deal policy. When it comes to the GIGA School concept of schools) conducting classes using one terminal per student in all classrooms, however, that's a completely different story. A fundamental Number of students: revamping of our network set-ups was necessary. On the assumption that students will in the near future be using digital Approximately 6,658 (as of May 1, textbooks and videos, we selected Chrome Books for our terminal devices, and at the same time we wanted our network to be 2019) as high-performance as we could make it within our budget. In formulating our specifications, we had advice from Nippon Dentsu, URL: which had maintained our existing network, and came to the conclusion that the wiring set-up, and not just our access points, https://www.city.kawachinagano.lg.jp/ would be absolutely critical." Implementation Case Study GIGA School

Selection Wiring Quality is Critical to Maintaining the Performance of Process High-speed Network Environments Over the Long Term

The GIGA School concept standard specifications manual should choose the highest-level, best LAN wiring that would states that for in-school networks, "Cat6A or better LAN cables enable us to use the environments coming several years from capable of 10Gbps connections are specified," and "Each now. As major changes take place in children's learning classroom is to be wired with wall-mounted or other data environments, the question of what to do about terminals and outlets and wireless LAN access points.” While affording full devices draws a lot of attention, but the environment that we Ethernet support and high performance in ultra-high-speed establish with our network set-up is also extremely critical to network environments, Category (Cat) 6A cables have a wide raising the quality of instruction. Skimping on investment in this outer diameter, and require high-quality installation work, area not only impacts classroom transmission performance, it Hiroo Yamasaki without which their performance can't be guaranteed, as when raises concerns that major installation work will be required for bend radii exceed specifications. So it seems there were device upgrades in the near future." In the end, the city Manager Education General Affairs Section, discussions of whether some of the existing wiring couldn't be emphasized quality on the recommendation of Nippon Dentsu, Education Promotion Department, reused to help balance costs. But Hayakawa points out the which it contracted for the installation work, and opted for Kawachinagano City Board of dangers of this thinking. "Unlike with a machine, the cabling uniform use of Panduit products for all wiring materials and Education Office inside a school building can't be easily altered. Given the parts to be installed, including Cat6A UTP cables, and patch evolutionary progress that will occur in the near future with 5G, cords connecting to floor switches and access points. WiFi6 and other transmission technologies, we thought we

School Diagram of the Kawachinagano City GIGA School Concept Classroom LAN cable PUR6AV04BU-G Wi-Fi Wiring patch panel Access point CPPKL6ATG24WB 3rd Connection patch cord Floor switch HUB-BOX Wi-Fi floor UTP6ASD1.5M Access point

LAN cable PUR6AV04BU-G Wi-Fi Takuji Hayakawa Wiring patch panel Access point Director CPPKL6ATG24WB Education General Affairs Section, 2nd Connection patch cord Floor switch HUB-BOX Wi-Fi Education Promotion Department, floor UTP6ASD1.5M Access point Kawachinagano City Board of Education Office WAP Connection patch cord LAN cable PUR6AV04BU-G UTP28X3MBU Exposed data outlet Wi-Fi Access point Exposed data outlet JOQ1H6A00 JOQ6H6A00 WAP Connection patch cord Wiring patch panel UTP28X3MBU CPPKL6ATG24WBL Exposed data outlet Wi-Fi JOQ1H6A00 Access point

Floor switch WAP Connection patch cord Base router Core switch UTP28X5MBU Connection patch cord 1st HUB-BOX Exposed data outlet Wi-Fi floor UTP6ASD1.5M JOQ1H6A00 Access point

GIGA School Environment Construction Completed in Result • Advance of Other Cities Future Advancing a New Educational Agenda on High-quality ICT Infrastructure Installation work scheduled for the summer break period in the equipped within the year. initial Kawachinagano City municipal plan was implemented Yamasaki concludes that, "Equipping schools with the best ICT early. Deployment at all schools was complete in July. hardware for learning within a limited budget is our professional Hayakawa noted that, "We got to work early, anticipating that duty. That's how we were able to finish equipping our school otherwise we would end up without enough equipment and early in advance of other cities, building a GIGA School personnel to perform the same kind of work on a nationwide environment affording high transmission quality. Moving scale. We moved the schedule forward, selecting a contractor forward, we will work in partnership with the school, the related from the presentation of bid specifications in April, then administrative divisions and adjacent municipalities on putting conducting our site inspections during the May break." The city this system to its fullest educational use. I look forward to the is moving forward with procurement of the remaining terminals continued supply of varied ICT utilization-related information as for instructional use, and plans to have the schools completely well as collaborative work with Nippon Dentsu and Panduit."

Construction Partner Nippon Dentsu Corporation https://www.ndknet.co.jp/ "In order to build a GIGA School network environment for this project in line with the wishes of the Kawachinagano City Board of Education, we used Panduit products for all wiring materials including Cat6A UTP (10Gbps) cables. High-quality installation was called for, and in order to maintain high performance over the long term, we thought the best choice would be to uniformly go with a single manufacturer, and to use Panduit products because they are the most reliable. Moreover, although Cat6A cables have wider outer Takeshi Komine diameters than conventional cables, which tends to make installation work cost more, Panduit Cat6A UTP Yasuhide Tsujita Platform Services Dept. Manager, cables are slimmer than those of other manufacturers, which heightened our cost-effectiveness. In realizing Public-sector Sales Group Senior ICT Technology Headquarters, Manager and GIGA Schools Advanced Technology Operations the GIGA School concept that will help children learn in the future, high-quality, highly reliable Panduit cable Promotion Office Director, Solution Dept. solutions are a promising presence, not just for the customers, but for our construction partners as well." Sales Dept., Advanced Technology Operations Dept.

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