In an effort to reallocate Internet bandwidth, City College may soon transfer its e-mail accounts from the schools database to Google’s e-mail system.

“Google will give each user three gigabytes of space, and we just don’t have that much disc space for each user,” said Paul Bishop, vice president of Information Technology. “We have over 210,000 e-mail addresses and many aren’t actively being used.”

The three gigabytes of e-mail space is 1,000 times more than currently allotted per person. The current system is nearly a decade old and is based on Netscape.

“It’s getting kind of old, but it works and is reliable,” said Bishop. “But it’s not nearly as good as Google’s system.”

The proposal may be implemented as early as next year and hopes to maximize performance for other applications at City College, such as the online college, Bishop said.

“We think that it will be a win for the students,” Bishop said.

The Pipeline portal and e-mail addresses are not expected to change. The adjustment will be on where the information is stored, an area where Google has a sizable advantage.

“Google seems to have the best tools and features available,” Bishop said. “They seem to be the company that has the architecture which can support large volumes of e-mail.”

Google e-mail accounts will sport a superior spam filter, faster performance, more space and accounts that users will be able to keep even after they leave City College, project director Dan Watkins said.

The move may also reduce City College’s energy costs, allowing funds to be spent on other campus projects. The storing of e-mail information is a large electricity consumer on campus, which will nearly be eliminated once the school implements this proposal.

“This is something we’re in the evaluation mode of,” said Bishop.