Aquinas College

The problem

Aquinas College provides residential accommodation for university students in Adelaide, making high-quality internet a core part of both day-to-day student life and the overall value of the college itself. Aquinas describes itself as a residential college and a "home away from home" for students studying at Adelaide's universities.

Reliable, high-performance internet is critical not only for supporting students' university studies, online learning, and access to cloud-based services, but also for attracting students to stay at the college in the first place. That makes connectivity both an operational requirement and an important part of the student experience.

At the time, the college already had dark fibre delivered through SABRENET, but it terminated at the Adam data centre where internet was provided via TPG. The college wanted a better-performing and more flexible solution without the cost and disruption of building a new fibre path.

What we did

Caznet worked with Aquinas College to repurpose their existing SABRENET dark fibre service rather than replacing it.

The dark fibre was reconfigured so that it terminated in the Caznet data centre instead of the Adam data centre. This allowed the college to retain its existing fibre asset while moving to a new network and service platform.

Once connected into the Caznet data centre, the service was integrated with Caznet Enterprise Internet, providing a higher-performance internet solution over the same existing fibre path.

Because Caznet's network is directly connected to AARNet, the outcome was particularly well aligned to an education-focused environment. AARNet operates Australia's national research and education network and is purpose-built to support universities, schools, staff and students with fast, reliable connectivity for teaching, learning and research.

Caznet worked closely with the college's managed services provider throughout the change, ensuring the transition was completed smoothly and aligned with the broader IT environment.

The result

Aquinas College now benefits from enterprise-grade internet delivered over its existing dark fibre infrastructure, without the need for a new fibre build.

The migration improved performance and gave the college greater control over its internet services, while also aligning connectivity more closely with the needs of students studying at university.

With access to a network directly connected to AARNet, the college is better positioned to support online learning, research, and the heavy day-to-day internet use expected in a modern student residential environment.

By reusing existing infrastructure and combining it with Caznet's network and data centre services, Aquinas College achieved a more efficient, more capable, and more education-aligned connectivity solution.