We don't, but were involved in the most recent in Maine. Back quite a while ago, when the network was first built, the BELL LEC (I don't rember what name they went by that year), was fined $20 million for overcharging rate payers. Instead of paying the fine, they suggested the state should have an educational network to link the schools together with Internet and so forth. Wonder of wonders, they received the whole project when it went to bid and built that instead of paying the fine. This allowed the LEC to build a Frame Relay and ATM network all over the state; sort of dead tech from the beginning. After the ongoing costs had exhausted the value of the fine some years later, we got a new charge on our phone bills to cover ongoing operations of the network. The schools have been using 56k leased lines, T1s, bonded T1s, and if they pay a bunch extra, ATM links. ISPs could provide the services, but would only get about $50/mo per location to serve a school/library, far less than the wholesale cost of what was installed by the LEC. Lots of people grumbled about this for a long time.
Fast forward to present. They put out a new RFP for a new network based on ethernet speeds and IP: http://www.maine.edu/strategic/upcoming_bids-list.php?id=10 Incumbents, CLECs, Cable, and various ISPs participated in the process. The variety of parties at the required RFP meeting and email discussion was a who's who meeting of the minds which I'm sure sharpened the proposals a bit. The cable company won the bid for the uplink. The links to the schools and libraries were awarded to combination of a major Maine CLEC, the Bell LEC, and the cable company. We made a proposal for a portion, but didn't get picked for our parts of the project. Our participation and submission of a proposal keeps us on the list as a potential vendor if the chosen vendor is unable to do everything on their list of sites, or if a school or library needs a legitimate upgrade that the chosen vendor can not provide in a timely and affordable means. As a business I was a little dissapointed not to be among the chosen because of the hard work involved in preparing a proposal. As a business and individual tax payer, I was very pleased this costly and important project is now going to be operated in a more competitive manner. It will cost less than the old network and be a whole lost faster and more useful because of actual competition between broadband technologies and facilities owners. It should be more reliable too. There were times in the past when most of the network went down because of a central LEC problem. The new network I suspect will be more resilient like the Internet operates. On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 08:17:05PM -0800, Kevin Owen wrote: > The State I provide service in (Idaho) is in the process of building a > Statewide Educational Network. I am interested in hearing from any of > you are providing service in a State that has built a State > Educational Network and if so, are local providers used to provide any > of the last miles services to the schools? > > Idaho started by saying they would work with the local providers, > however, now they have changed their tune and local providers are not > given the opportunity to even bid on the service. > > Qwest is charging at least 3 - 5 times what any of the other local > ISP's could or would charge for the same or more bandwidth. We are > simply told we are not able to provide the service due to technical > reasons, however, the State thus far has not defined what those > technical reasons are. The difference in cost per year is in the > millions. > > Our State IT group is also saying this is how it is done in other > states to provide a quality and cost effective network. > > So does anybody provide any last mile services to any Statewide > educational network? > > Thanks, > > Kevin > First Step Internet, LLC > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! Join today! > http://signup.wispa.org/ > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- /* Jason Philbrook | Midcoast Internet Solutions - Wireless and DSL KB1IOJ | Broadband Internet Access, Dialup, and Hosting http://f64.nu/ | for Midcoast Maine http://www.midcoast.com/ */ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
