They are not buying hubs anymore. User devices such as desktops, hubs, and switches are located within 100m of the starpoints and connect to the Starpoint switches. 100Mbps connections are provided at no cost to the user. Higher speed connections cost the user extra. User switches are procured, configured and managed by the computer center but paid for by the user.
Hubs are free.
They evaluated Gbps products from 14-16 manufacturers and eventually selected Cabletron. They will be replacing their existing Cisco equipment. There are also a large number of Macs and about 150 Shiva Fastpaths still deployed with LocalTalk. The network folks are concerned about allowing dynamic DHCP since they then have no idea of what is on the network. However, static addressing does not allow the user to insert a NIC card.