"Also, through previous projects with Alcatel-Lucent, built up a level of trust in their solutions," he added.

More universities are responding to the needs of a new generation of tech-savvy faculty and students through network transformations, according to Tom Burns, president of enterprise solutions at Alcatel-Lucent.

"The consolidation of this relationship has contributed to Alcatel-Lucent's continued strong growth in the enterprise sector," Burns said.

UTS, which became a member of Alcatel-Lucent's Research Partner Program in 2003, also selected Alcatel-Lucent in April last year for its 3-D Animation Multimedia Lab, the first of its kind in an Australian university.

Developing 3-D animations requires sophisticated computers and software applications built over a very high-speed network. Users typically require huge bandwidth at Gigabit Ethernet speeds to meet the demands of a distributed rendering solution.