Students across all seven elementary schools in Webster Central School District will experience improved connectivity this year, thanks to the installation of 118,000 feet of Category 6A plenum Ethernet and 517,000 feet of Category 6 plenum Ethernet cables from Proterial Cable America (PCA).
R-Options, Inc., PCA’s #1 reseller in North America, executed the installation. Thanks to their work, Proterial cable will lead to better connections in the classroom, enabling screen mirroring technology and providing higher bandwidth and faster speeds for the district’s printers, TVs, projectors, and even clocks.
R-Options, Inc., installers based in Rochester, NY, won the project bid and chose PCA cable for the infrastructure upgrade which covered all seven elementary schools in the district.
“The cable comes out of the box the way it should,” says Rich Powell of R-Options “Proterial makes a good cable. It’s a good product.”
R-Options went through each building and strategically replaced all the district’s Cat 5e cables with Cat 6 or 6A, an extensive project, equaling 120 miles of Ethernet cable installation in the district. Proterial cables were routed through the ceilings of classrooms, gyms, auditoriums, and anywhere else that needed access to data transfer. Additionally, extra access points were installed to enhance the wireless coverage, ensuring the signal will support current technologies and users while also accommodating additional hardware added in the future.
Upgrading the cables throughout the school district was a strategic move for Webster. As technology develops, they will be prepared to handle faster speeds and higher bandwidth. When making long-term technology decisions like this, it’s crucial to trust the product you’re using, and R-Options says PCA is the best option.
“We’ve had no problems with PCA,” says Powell. “The availability is there; we don’t experience long lead times no matter how much cable we’re looking for and all the technicians like it.”
With all the work complete, it’s safe to say PCA helped the Webster School District prepare for the future.
Proterial powers a mass notification system, which is available throughout the school district in case of emergencies or when urgent messages need to be delivered.
Another significant change comes with screen mirroring capabilities in the classroom. This marks the end of traditional whiteboards, blackboards, and even HDMI cables. Instead, teachers and students can access the same projected screen using a cloud-based product called Vivi.
“It allows teachers and students to connect to the board wirelessly,” says Andy Forma, Network Administrator for the Webster School District. “So instead of having an HDMI cable running to the teacher’s desk, if the teacher wants a student to share, or invites a presenter, they can connect to the board while being able to move throughout the classroom.”
Powell says there are multiple reasons why PCA cable is his go-to cable manufacturer. “The availability is phenomenal, if we order 50,000 feet, our distributors have it. It’s easy to get, it comes out of the box nice, it’s the little things like that.”
In addition to network cables, PCA cable also supports hundreds of 360-degree cameras throughout the schools, as well as printers, clocks, and TVs/projectors that are replacing whiteboards in the seven elementary schools.
“Door access is all wired, access controls, HVAC, boiler systems,” says Forma. “More and more things are becoming networked.”
With the continual growth of networking, Webster Schools wisely prepared for the future by adding extra drops throughout their buildings to accommodate advancing technology and future educational devices. They chose PCA cable to ensure these connections are both high-quality and high-performance.
So, what is different about the Cat 6A cables that makes all of this work worthwhile?
Cat 6A is a higher-performing version of a Cat 6 cable, offering higher bandwidth and supporting faster data rates. It can accommodate 10 gigabit Ethernet and support frequencies up to 500 MHz, providing unmatched performance and compatibility. Cat 6A cables usually have larger conductors compared to Cat 6, ensuring very reliable and high-speed data transmission.
In Webster, the upgrade from Cat-5e, an older product, to Cat 6A represents a significant enhancement.
The huge project used 118,000 feet (about 35.97 km) of Category 6A and 517,000 feet (roughly the distance from Washington, D.C. to New York City) of Category 6 PCA cable. The installation took eight weeks to complete and included over 120 miles of cable, more than 4,000 drops, wireless access points wherever needed, and numerous other specifics, such as cable connections to hundreds of cameras, TVs/projectors, and clocks.
PCA has been involved in several large-scale education projects, including extensive work over the years at the University of Connecticut and the University of Alabama-Birmingham.
“We’re proud to offer top-of-the-line products, and I’m thrilled we can be a part of the technological upgrades at places like the Webster School District,” says Joe Barry, COO of PCA-NH.
The products we make at PCA can help your business, school, or facilities because we offer expert manufacturing while maintaining affordability.
“The price is right, it’s available and it’s a quality cable,” says Powell. “You install 2,000 cables and test them out and nothing fails because of attenuation or crosstalk, we haven’t had those issues. It just works.”
Contact us to learn more about Proterial Cable America’s product portfolio so we can leave you as happy as the Webster, New York School District!
