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Comments on news posted 2014-02-04 14:21:22: Last week's State of the Union address made reference to a new Obama plan to shore up connectivity to schools, the government promising to bring 100 Mbps to 99% of schools within the next four years. ..


Pegasus
Premium Member
join:2008-01-04
united state

Pegasus

Premium Member

LOL

Sprint cant even provide a decent broadband experience for its paying customers like myself. what a joke.

newview
Ex .. Ex .. Exactly
Premium Member
join:2001-10-01
Parsonsburg, MD

newview

Premium Member

Free wireless from AT&T?

What a joke.
They'll be so many strings attached you'll be jumping through hoops like a puppet.

... and they'll cancel the program after two weeks.

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
·StarLink

SimbaSeven

Member

100Mbps?

..via Wireless? Are they serious?

The only way do successfully do that, without bogging down their entire network, is jumping to LTE-A, but no one in the U.S. is doing that.

Even then, you'd need fiber to handle that type of load. Wireless can't handle it.

Smith6612
MVM
join:2008-02-01
North Tonawanda, NY
·Charter
Ubee EU2251
Ubiquiti UAP-IW-HD
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-AC-HD

Smith6612

MVM

Both Sprint and AT&T are large enough to be able to set up Microwave links between their towers and a school that needs connectivity. Hey, perhaps they can rent space on top of the school if it's big enough to improve Wireless connectivity in general.

But if all of this is strictly LTE to the device, rather than LTE to the building, then that changes things. Hopefully at a minimum they improve cell service inside of schools. Most of the schools in this area are like faraday cages. Step inside, and no matter if there's a tower behind the building you're not going to get solid 2G service.
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

xenophon to Pegasus

Member

to Pegasus

Re: LOL

Highly likely free for schools in markets that have Spark completed. I'm in a mostly completed market and get 6-20Mbps.
jsuboh
join:2002-06-13
Delano, CA

1 recommendation

jsuboh to Smith6612

Member

to Smith6612

Re: 100Mbps?

A lot of these services are for students that take home Chrome Books or Tablets. Many students/parents cannot afford internet services at home. Since many classrooms are becoming digital per Common Core Standards, these services will allow to student to achieve their academic goals. These services would be proxied through content filters to prevent access to inappropriate sites based on the school policies.

n2jtx
join:2001-01-13
Glen Head, NY

n2jtx to Pegasus

Member

to Pegasus

Re: LOL

said by Pegasus:

Sprint cant even provide a decent broadband experience for its paying customers like myself. what a joke.

LOL! If they offer the same quality service I have, the schools would be better with 56K dialup.

noneflksjafl
@204.108.96.x

noneflksjafl

Anon

ha ha ha ha

they also provided everything with the erate, ha ha ha ha

Gilitar
join:2012-02-01
Mobile, AL

Gilitar

Member

Sprint

Sprint has the spectrum to EASILY offer 100 mbps to schools. In fact they can do far more than that with nearly 200 mhz of 2.5 ghz spectrum. Sprint needs just a little low frequency spectrum and they could dominate the other carriers

tigerpaw509
join:2011-01-19

1 recommendation

tigerpaw509

Member

In my Hood

Around here all schools have fiber from both the local Telco and comcast
TBBroadband
join:2012-10-26
Fremont, OH

TBBroadband to xenophon

Member

to xenophon

Re: LOL

And that's not many markets. Maybe 10 to 30 markets at most. A few of the cities that had Spark already turned on and active have already been taken off the Sprint coverage map.
TBBroadband

TBBroadband to Gilitar

Member

to Gilitar

Re: Sprint

only if their prices came down. and their coverage was greatly improved.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA to jsuboh

Premium Member

to jsuboh

Re: 100Mbps?

That makes a bit more sense, but I'm still trying to figure out what they're doing that requires internet access...
BiggA

BiggA

Premium Member

In my experiences, granted I was living in an affluent town, the school computers were the butt of all the jokes because everyone had a years newer model with faster everything at home.

michieru
Premium Member
join:2009-07-25
Denver, CO

1 edit

michieru to SimbaSeven

Premium Member

to SimbaSeven
There are PTP and PTMP applications that do 600Mbps+ full duplex if required. To ask for 100Mbps allows for greater distance, cheaper cost and use of unlicensed frequencies. With proper planning and rate limiting per client on the LAN you can easily handle over 100+ computers for WAN connectivity and that includes YouTube.

Radio's costs could be 25K for a link (2 radios). However sometimes the cost of running fiber for a mile or two could cost more than 3+ times the cost of a link itself and simply requires line of sight.

Some radio's also provide for link aggregation (LAG) so you can combine a set of ports to increase the throughput of two links into one for extra capacity.

jseymour
join:2009-12-11
Waterford, MI

jseymour

Member

Free?

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody's going to be paying for that. Anybody care to guess who that would be?

Jim
54761437 (banned)
join:2013-01-18
Durham, NC

54761437 (banned)

Member

Deja vu

The government making more promises it has no intention of keeping. Remember all the money telcos and states took from the federal government to roll out fiber back in the '90s? Yeah, where exactly is that money now? Where's the fiber? Where's any of it? This is on par with Genachowski demanding gigabit in every major metropolitan area by 2015. Total farce and fantasy.

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
·StarLink

1 edit

SimbaSeven to michieru

Member

to michieru

Re: 100Mbps?

Not what I'm getting at at all.

What I'm getting at is, how much is this going to cost per month for each school? Plus, if some schools can barely get a T1, how the heck are they going to deliver 100mbps in the area?

They complain about capacity all the time, yet they claim they can handle this just fine. I call bullsh*t. Feeding a tower with 8x T1 lines does not = 100mbps. Sure, you could do 3x DS3's, but that would get cost prohibitive.
..unless you plan to charge insane rates for these speeds. Like >$50,000/mo per school.
jsuboh
join:2002-06-13
Delano, CA

jsuboh to BiggA

Member

to BiggA
Hi,

Now a days, because of Common Core and SBAC online testing, schools are updating and incorporating newer technology. I work for a small district in which we have 500 iPads and are also evaluating Chrome Books. Common Core Standards are incorporating Technology into the lessons and are requiring students to use technology to complete their assignments. We have a nearby District in which they gave all their students Chrome Books and a WiMAX Gateways to allow students internet and school network access from home. Our teachers are using Google Docs, Edmodo, and other cloud based solutions to manage their students and classroom assignment. Mind you, we are doing this at a K8 school district with the earlier grade levels involving the introduction to the technology.

Mizzat
Will post for thumbs
Premium Member
join:2003-05-03
Atlanta, GA

Mizzat to SimbaSeven

Premium Member

to SimbaSeven
said by SimbaSeven:

..via Wireless? Are they serious?

The only way do successfully do that, without bogging down their entire network, is jumping to LTE-A, but no one in the U.S. is doing that.

Even then, you'd need fiber to handle that type of load. Wireless can't handle it.

AT&T said at CES that they are moving to LTE-A this year...
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA to jsuboh

Premium Member

to jsuboh
Wow, I didn't realize that. I guess when I was in school (I graduated high school in '08) this stuff was in it's infancy, so we thought it was all a joke and would never go anywhere. We had PCs and whatnot, but other than the teacher projecting stuff up off the computer, they were never a big part of what we were doing.

michieru
Premium Member
join:2009-07-25
Denver, CO

michieru to SimbaSeven

Premium Member

to SimbaSeven
At our location we have over 250 users on a Atlantic Broadband connection as a primary with a Metro-E 20/20 pipe from Windstream as a failover.

We get 220Mbps/10Mbps for about $400 per month via a DOCSIS modem. I don't see why the schools can't do a similar design either when the majority of all traffic is mostly downstream. Now let's be fair that such speeds won't be available everywhere but I can bet it will be more cost effective than any T1 service currently running to it.

As for capacity, well it can always be built. However they always want to do it on someone else's dime.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

Exactly. Here in CT, the state built some fancy fiber network to all the schools. It was a huge upgrade over our pair of bonded T1's serving several hundred computers, but I was wondering why they didn't keep the T1's as backup and call Comcast for Business Class service- it would have provided more than enough bandwidth for far less cost than the fancy fiber network...

michieru
Premium Member
join:2009-07-25
Denver, CO

michieru

Premium Member

All based on application, usage, requirements, etc, etc. The fiber network can provide them a more centralized environment. It could of been built not to provide internet but rather share resources across all schools within the state via internal hosted services. In short there own MAN/WAN. A PBX or Callmanager handling all calls between schools would save them thousands of dollars a year and require less DIDs since most people will have a internal extension anyway.

The school can simply reroute all WAN traffic at the local router via a different interface to a cable connection and throttle all traffic via a predetermined threshold. Burst traffic is also available when low utilization exists. Also school's pay a cheaper rate based on state pricing so if a T1 costs $400 a month chances are that the school is paying $200 per T1.

Pegasus
Premium Member
join:2008-01-04
united state

Pegasus to n2jtx

Premium Member

to n2jtx

Re: LOL

Sometimes around here a tin can and string are faster, 56K would be like Google Fiber.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA to michieru

Premium Member

to michieru

Re: 100Mbps?

Maybe there was some master plan, although from what I saw, there wasn't anything great running over it, other than regular internet. Seems to me the costs of connecting schools via fiber was pretty high, when they could have all just called up their local cable companies and got business class service. Although they wouldn't have had the bandwidth to do stuff like centralized VOIP, they could still have accessed centralized state services and had remote management through VPNs and remote access over the public internet. My point wasn't about the cost of the T1's, but rather how slow they were. Up until the 2006 timeframe, the whole school was running off of a pair of bonded T1's, which was ridiculous. I think I had 6mbps for one house at home at the time. Comcast Business Class was 20 or 50mbps or something at the time.

SimbaSeven
I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT
·StarLink

SimbaSeven

Member

The issue would be the head end (the other end of the VPN) had better have at least an OC3 to handle all the traffic from the schools.

3mbps x 50 schools = 150mbps.. and you know that the connections will probably be saturated at least 8 hours of the day.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA

Premium Member

No, I'm saying route internet traffic right to the internet, and only specific stuff that needs to be routed between schools between schools, and for remote administration, VPN into the school network, not the other way around.