By Joan Crigger
July 1, 2002

3Com Corporation, in partnership with The U.S. Conference of Mayors, awarded $500,000 in networking equipment and consulting services to five cities during the 70th Annual Conference of Mayors in Madison. The winners are: Jackson (MS) Mayor Harvey Johnson, Jr., Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman, Niagara Falls (NY) Mayor Irene J. Elia, Northglenn (CO) Mayor Kathleen M. Novak, and Portland (OR) Mayor Vera Katz.

Larry Geller, Manager of Digital Opportunity Programs at 3Com Corporation, announced the winners at the Monday plenary session. Geller acknowledged that with these five winners 3Com will have donated $3.5 million dollars in equipment to 35 different cities. Conference of Mayors President Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino brought 3Com to the Conference following their work with the Boston public schools to bridge the digital divide and make Boston the first fully wired public school system in the country.

3Com's Urban Challenge Program was created to help cities incorporate new uses for information technology into the fabric of their communities and enhance public school education and public communications systems. This is the fifth phase of 3Com's Urban Challenge program which was established three years ago.

Jackson, MS: The City of Jackson will enrich the curricula and communications opportunities with Jackson Public Schools and enable the city to use high-speed 3Com switches to connect a three-school campus to the district's central networking hub via the City of Jackson's fiber network backbone.

Las Vegas, NV: Las Vegas will build an infrastructure that will deliver tomorrow's communications services today to the city's 19 Leisure Services and Community Centers which will augment the school's academic services by offering online programs to underprivileged children, latch-key kids and students on summer break who might not otherwise have access to them.

Niagara Falls, NY: Niagara Falls will bolster interactive academic services at its high school, where it will deploy a 3Com wireless local area network (LAN), as well as at the school district's three middle schools, nine elementary schools and one adult education school.

Northglenn, CO: The City of Northglenn is building a more enriched and secure academic environment for approximately 30,000 K-12 students by deploying 3Com Gigabit Ethernet networks and Voice-over-IP telephone systems, which will enable teachers to introduce additional learning applications as well as expand the district's use of the Internet and video services.