New education contracts based on broadband technology
New education contracts based on broadband technology
Keywords: Distance education, Information technology
Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Sunderland, Bury LEA, Portland College, Queen Elizabeth College and the National Sea Training Centre have selected the Fantastic Corporation as a partner in their move to broadband technology. These organizations will use broadband to enhance their learning material, expand their base of off-site students and improve their information delivery methods.
Matthew Goulden, UK sales director at the Fantastic Corporation, commenting on Fantastic's contract wins, said: "Education is one of the first sectors in the UK to utilise broadband. The reason for this is twofold. First,educational material is becoming increasingly media-rich and interactive, with video, audio, graphics and animation just as important as books, articles and attending lectures.
"Second, universities and colleges are, for financial reasons, expanding the number of off-campus students. Broadband offers a cheaper and faster way to deliver weighty multimedia files to students in multiple remote locations and manage regular updates within tight timetables and budgets. Broadband cuts out the time delays that accompany sending weighty files over the Internet and the expense of sending material by post or ISDN line, both of which have hindered long-distance learning in the past."
The Fantastic Corporation is the leading provider for data broadcasting. This is an emerging communications technology which combines point-to-multipoint digital broadcasting with point-to-point Internet connectivity, in order to deliver rich interactive media content to PCs, digital set-top boxes or handheld devices (including 3G mobile phones) over any broadband IP network.
By merging the inherent bandwidth and speed benefits of broadcasting technologies with the interactivity of the Internet, data broadcast provides superior content distribution and interaction in an increasingly IP-centric world. Fantastic's end-to-end software supports the rapid growth of the "data broadcast" industry.
Fantastic's global partners and customers include British Telecom, Telecom Italia, Deutsche Telekom, NTT Communicationware, Telstra, Loral Space and Communications, Reuters, Lucent Technology, Intel, Singapore Press Holdings and Inktomi.
For further information, visit the company's Web site at http://www.fantastic.com
