Community College of Baltimore County Boosts Distance Learning Initiatives with Comcast Business Services

BALTIMORE, Aug. 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Comcast Corporation, one of the nation's leading providers of information and communications products and services, today announced that the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) has implemented Comcast Business Class Ethernet services in its Fab Lab, an interactive workshop that allows users to take advantage of digital fabrication technologies by using files of two- or three-dimensional computer drawings to replicate new and inventive products onto different types of equipment. With this connection from Comcast, more than 72,000 students and members of the local community can now benefit from various video conferencing capabilities while also connecting with their peers in other Fab Labs around the world.

Originally created as an outreach project through Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA), today's Fab Labs have spread from inner-city Boston to rural India, South Africa, Norway, and beyond. Each lab contains digital fabrication equipment and materials that can be used to create anything from solar and wind-powered turbines, thin-client computers and analytical instrumentation for agriculture, to custom housing, furniture and prosthetics. A mere 40 of these 118 labs are located in the United States, and CCBC is currently the only one operating in Maryland.

"The CCBC Fab Lab is open to students, faculty and the general public, which meant that we needed a reliable, high-speed Internet connection that would be able to accommodate the increasing bandwidth demands that we'd be placing on our network each day while also minimizing lag time," said William Werneke, the Fab Lab manager at CCBC. "We've been a Comcast customer for almost a decade and have always been extremely pleased with our service, so choosing to upgrade our existing Internet connection was an easy decision for us."

CCBC chose to add an Ethernet Network Service (ENS) from Comcast to assist in the school's transfer of data, voice and video among its three main campuses and three satellite locations. It also installed an Ethernet Dedicated Internet (EDI) line to provide high-speed web access and enhance the school's video conferencing and distance learning initiatives for both on- and off-campus students and faculty.

"We have an extremely large student body that spans six campuses and 55 countries, which means that our network needs to be robust enough to accommodate the thousands of users accessing our network at any given time," said Benjamin N. Thompson, manager of network engineering and information security at CCBC. "Since 2002, Comcast has given us the ability to reliably deliver the technologies that our students need to achieve their educational goals, and we look forward to continuing to evolve with the company as it continues to broaden its service portfolio well into the future."

CCBC continues to expand its Fab Lab and distance learning programs while also looking to the future with other cloud computing initiatives that will rely on the high-speed Internet access that its Comcast ENS and EDI services already provide.

"Schools like CCBC are increasingly taking advantage of remote collaboration tools like the Fab Lab to create borderless classrooms that encourage learning even beyond campus walls," said John Whalen, regional vice president for Comcast Business Services. "These initiatives require the use of high performance, reliable connectivity, and Comcast has the infrastructure in place to help support them in these goals."

About the Community College of Baltimore County

Offering more than 100 associate degree and certificate programs in a wide range of fields, the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) has three main campuses located in the Catonsville, Dundalk, and Essex communities of Baltimore County, Maryland, as well as extension centers located in the Hunt Valley, Owings Mills, and Randallstown communities of Baltimore County. Annual enrollment is over 72,000, and its student body represents 55 countries. For more information about the school, please visit http://www.ccbcmd.edu. To inquire about the CCBC Fab Lab, go to http://www.time-center.org/fablab/index.html.

About Comcast Business Services
Comcast Business Services, a unit of Comcast Cable, provides advanced communication solutions to help organizations of all sizes meet their business objectives. Through a modern, advanced network that is backed by 24/7 technical support, Comcast delivers Business Class Internet, TV and Voice services for cost-effective, simplified communications management.

The Comcast Business Class Ethernet suite offers high-performance point-to-point and multi-point Metro Ethernet services with the capacity to deliver cloud computing, software-as-a-service, business continuity/disaster recovery and other bandwidth-intensive applications. Comcast Metro Ethernet services are significantly faster than standard T1 lines and other legacy technologies, providing scalable bandwidth from 1 Mbps up to 10 Gigabits-per-second (Gbps) in more than 20 major US markets.

For more information, call 866-429-3085 or visit http://business.comcast.com/enterprise.  

About Comcast Cable
Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK) (www.comcast.com) is one of the nation's leading providers of entertainment, information and communications products and services. Comcast is principally involved in the operation of cable systems through Comcast Cable and in the development, production and distribution of entertainment, news, sports and other content for global audiences through NBCUniversal. Comcast Cable is one of the nation's largest video, high-speed Internet and phone providers to residential and business customers. Comcast is the majority owner and manager of NBCUniversal, which owns and operates entertainment and news cable networks, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, local television station groups, television production operations, a major motion picture company and theme parks.

SOURCE Comcast