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PORTLAND COLLEGE TO IMPLEMENT FANTASTIC'S BROADBAND TECHNOLOGY IN TRAINING & EDUCATION SECTOR
Mansfield / London, July 24, 2000 - Portland College, a national residential college for people with a wide range of physical disabilities, has selected the Fantastic Corporation's broadband technology to deliver media rich content to desktops within its new CTEC Centre. The Centre offers vocational training in Information and Communications Technology for people with physical disabilities and acquired brain injury (ABI). Portland College joins Sheffield Hallam and Aston Universities in the move to adopt broadband technologies and in appointing Fantastic.
Portland will use Fantastic's Channel Editorial Centreä (CEC), to tailor, package and schedule its curriculum and learning support programming, which is then sent to the BT Tower. At BT, Fantastic's Channel Management Centreä (CMC) technology is used to transmit broadband files via satellite, then send material to off-site students' internet addresses. This learning material will include real time audio, video and high resolution animated graphics, which combine the quality, emotion and reach of TV with the interactivity of the Internet.
David Amos, training manager at Portland College, commenting on the decision to utilise broadband, said: "Media-rich and engaging styles of learning, enabled by Fantastic's broadband technology, are vital for students who have had only limited success with traditional methods of learning. What is more, traditional learning methods do not meet all the needs of people with specific disabilities - it is, therefore, vital that CTEC embraces technology that makes it easier for learners to cope with their impairment, gain in self esteem and prepare for meaningful employment."
Portland College currently has 200 students, 50 of whom will use Fantastic enabled broadband technology initially. David Amos hopes to increase this number to 1000 students, many of whom will be non-residents of the College, but who will still be able to benefit and utilise the college courses. Course material will also be sent to former students of the College, reflecting Portland's commitment to lifelong learning.
Amos continued: "This technology will enable students with acquired brain injury to progress more quickly and more successfully with their re-education and vocational training. With a strong demand for people to work in the field of design and the development of media rich content, we hope that training our students at and beyond the CTEC Centre on professional industry standard software will offer potential employment in the Internet industry."
Reto Braun, Chairman and CEO of Fantastic said: "I am very pleased to see that broadband technology is being applied in the education sector, opening new possibilities for distance learning and helping people to communicate better."
The CTEC Centre is sponsored by the Ian Karten Charitable Trust.
The Fantastic Corporation (Zug, Switzerland) is the leading provider of end to end software solutions for broadband data broadcasting. This is an emerging communications technology which combines point-to-multipoint digital broadcasting with point-to-point Internet connectivity, in order to deliver rich interactive media content to PCs, digital set-top boxes or handheld devices (including 3G mobile phones) over any broadband IP network.
By merging the inherent bandwidth and speed benefits of broadcasting technologies with the interactivity of the Internet, broadcast data provides superior content distribution and interaction in an increasingly IP-centric world. Fantastic's end to end software supports the rapid growth of the "data broadcast" industry.
Fantastic's customers are typically in two categories. The first includes network operators, satellite companies and any other company providing broadband data transmission services. The second category is content providers, such as media or entertainment companies, or any organisation wishing to transmit large volumes of digital data to target receiver groups quickly and efficiently.
Fantastic is a public company, quoted on the Frankfurt Stock exchange the symbol: FAN.
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For further information, please contact:
The Fantastic Corporation
Annick Lusser
Public Relations
annick.lusser@fantastic.com
The Fantastic Corporation
Neil Corrigan
Marketing Manager
neil.corrigan@fantastic.com
Communications Ltd.
Esther Gottschalk
Marketforce
egottschalk@marketforce-communications.co.uk
Or visit our web site at www.fantastic.com
The Fantastic Corporation is a registered trademark. Channel Management Center (CMC), Channel Editorial Center (CEC), CEC Master, and MediaSurfer are trademarks of The Fantastic Corporation.
