The school has 180-plus staff and 1600 students using the network and work is underway for an IP telephony network delivered over a wireless mesh solution.

The network, which has been outsourced to privately-owned system integrator TTGroup Communications, is based on Nortel technology.

Sheldon College business and commercial services director Chris Harkin said the school realized technology advances were widely available that could provide a competitive edge in running the school as a business while giving students better access to resources.

"But with limited budgets we couldn't staff the level of expertise we needed to gain access to these technologies, so we did things a little differently." Harkin said.

TTGroup Communications CEO Bob Bishop, said until a few years ago Sheldon College had a typical school network made up of a haphazard mix of PCs, servers, laptops, limited connectivity and no single standardized operating platform.