Fiber Optic Network Brings York County Schools High Speed Access-Strength In Numbers
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Written by Colby C. Young
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Sunday, 08 March 2009 |
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Strength in Numbers
With the network design in place, each school district is connected with 3 to 10 Mbps of bandwidth to the ISP. The network's total backbone capacity is 45 Mbps. One concern about the network was whether it could handle simultaneous requests from several users. "Within 45 days of the network going live, 228 students at Central York signed on from different computers and intentionally requested the same Web site at the same time," says Evans. "In less than two seconds, every user had access to the site."
There also was concern about whether two different suppliers' equipment would communicate -- in this case, providing the Ethernet-to-ATM cell conversion on different products. In addition, the network carries both Internet Protocol (IP) and AppleTalk traffic, which created some initial network challenges.
Regular IP traffic passed through the network without problems, but the AppleTalk locations would get disconnected. This required the equipment to be reset to bring those locations back on the network. The solution was to segment the IP and AppleTalk connections outside the ATM switch, resulting in what Guth described as a dean handoff between the two suppliers' equipment. He credits Fujitsu's dedication and support for the network's success. "Fujitsu basically put every resource necessary on this to make sure it worked properly," recalls Guth.
Currently, the network is primarily used for Internet access and research purposes. Each district also uses the network to share data among its own school buildings as well as to connect to the best educational resources the other districts have to offer. Still, each district independently maintains its own technology program.
Cost is a barrier to quicker expansion, but the consortium is working to cut the price to participants to make it competitive with the popular, straight T1 access available from other providers. "Each YATEC member district on the network pays about $63,000 per year, which is significantly less than the more than $1.2 million a year each would have paid to put in their own individual network, relates Evans. Separately, the districts would not have been able to achieve the bandwidth and speed they have as a group.
The four member districts of YATEC that are connected to the network have 12,000 to 13,000 K-12 students. The total enrollment of all 16 districts in York County is 34,000 students. York City, a member of YATEC with plans to tie into the network, has the largest enrollment, with 7,700 students. YATEC anticipates all or most of the York County school districts becoming members by the end of the 1998 school year or beginning of the 1999 school year -- first as members of the consortium, then as active members on the network.
Physically expanding the YATEC network is not difficult. Hyperion can add schools to the existing rings or turn up additional rings. The rings also support voice services for other schools, as well as other business customers' telecommunications traffic. The network's scalability allows expansion as the districts utilize their technologies more effectively and as YATEC increases its membership, bringing more districts and students onto the network. As new school districts join the network and existing ones broaden their technology program, they can help each other grow and learn.
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Last Updated ( Sunday, 08 March 2009 )
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