Adams50 Case Study

Colorado District Bids Farewell to Network Bottlenecks & Spiraling Costs

A Colorado school district’s quest for a long-term bandwidth solution ends with a state-of-the art fiber optic network implemented by Unite Private Networks, LLC. The new solution provides virtually unlimited throughput, making network bottlenecks a distant memory.

About Adams County School District #50

The Adams County School District #50 in Westminster, Colorado, also known as Adams50, serves more than 10,000 students in 19 schools. With 1300 staff members and an annual budget exceeding $110 million, Adams50 faces the same challenges of most districts across the nation – how to meet current student, staff, administrative, and instructional needs, while adequately planning for the future, in the face of severely limited budgetary resources.

Bandwidth Requirements and Network Costs Spiral Up

When Brady Mills, Director of Technology for Adams50, started with the district thirteen years ago, an IT environment free of network bottlenecks was just a dream. Many of the buildings in the Adams50 district are old, some built over 60 years ago. It was challenging to maintain an adequate networking environment spanning buildings with outdated infrastructure – a common struggle for many school districts. Until 2009, Adams50 leveraged a T1 copper network from a large telecommunications provider, running T1 circuits to each of 24 buildings.

"It was getting more and more expensive, and our bandwidth requirements were greatly increasing," Mills explains. “It simply was not cost effective to keep doing with T1 networks.” Network bottlenecks restricted the ability to incorporate new technologies and instructional applications, and wireless support was minimal at best. Knowing the district would eventually reach the breaking point with the current network infrastructure, Mills resolved to get ahead of the ever-increasing bandwidth needs. In 2005 and 2006, Mills began researching his options for a better, more cost-effective, long-term solution to meet the district’s bandwidth needs.

E-Rate Program Makes Fiber Optic WAN Affordable

Mills had the good fortune to discover Unite Private Networks (UPN) early in his research process. He developed a strong working relationship with the company, one of the largest turn-key providers of fiber optic Wide Area Networks (WANs) in the nation. UPN provides specialized expertise in helping school districts leverage the E-Rate government program for U.S. schools and libraries to obtain affordable telecommunications and Internet services.

By early 2007, Mills’ research and foresight paid off. With the benefit of UPN’s knowledge and experience, Adams50 successfully navigated the complex and cumbersome E-Rate application process, securing an 84% lease rate discount on a new, state-of-the-art, UPN fiber optic network.

Long-term, Fixed Cost Contract an Easy Sell to School Board

"We selected UPN because it was clear that they were the only group out there with really good school district fiber networking experience,” Mills says. “They have great experience and references across the nation, for good reason."

In 2007, Adams50 entered into a fixed-cost, 15-year contract with UPN to provide a private fiber optic WAN for the district – 84% of which is paid for by E-Rate. Network data is transmitted at 1 Gigabit per second (or GigE). Mills describes this long-term lease as an easy sell to school board. "This network answers all of our bandwidth needs for the next 15 years, and the cost is locked in." Mills says. "It was obvious to the Board that the benefits were just huge."

UPN Delivers, Six Months Ahead of Schedule

Leasing a private fiber optic WAN from UPN provides all the benefits of owning the network infrastructure – including complete control over configuration and throughput, and exclusive claims to the bandwidth – without any of the headaches involved in building or maintaining that infrastructure. Working closely with Mills, UPN designed a custom fiber network to best meet the district’s implementation goals. Adams50 opted for a unique hybrid design, combining ring as well as hub-and-spoke network architecture.

UPN began building the district’s new fiber network in November 2008, managing the construction process for 23 route-miles of fiber optic cabling, handling all the complexities involved with permit, right-of-way, etc. issues. Construction proceeded smoothly and the district’s new network went live at the end of 2009, six months earlier than expected.

"It was a very smooth process," Mills says. "UPN is extremely reliable. They know E-Rate, they know how to work with cities to get permits and resolve implementation issues, and they work with quality subcontractors."

Network Throughput Increased 1000 Times

The decision to lease a fiber WAN from UPN has paid off for the Adams50 district in a myriad of ways. With network throughput now roughly one thousand times greater, Adams50 has been able to expand programs & services that were constrained by the previous networking environment. In addition, Mills and his team are implementing new systems that were never in the realm of possibility before.

Students are benefiting directly from the new capabilities. The district has enough network speed to extensively leverage Internet applications for instruction, utilizing a wide range of rich content for learning – including network-intensive streaming video. In addition, the district can now utilize Internet applications for tasks such as student assessment, planning, business processes, and data storage.

Limitless Bandwidth Facilitates New Possibilities, New Efficiencies

The district is also using the UPN fiber network to support new, centralized systems for HVAC monitoring and control, Voice over IP (VoIP), and security. Adams50 has installed security systems and cameras in each of the district’s buildings, all of which are networked and centrally managed.

Another back-office benefit of the new network involves elimination of site-based servers. Previously, the Adams50 Technology Department supported as many as 50 distributed servers across all district buildings. With the UPN WAN, Mills’ has been able to consolidate all site-based servers into one centrally-located virtual server farm, resulting in huge savings of time, labor, and capital. "There is less hardware to support," says Mills “and the reduction in complexity and overhead to maintain is huge. This would not have been possible on the old network."

Learning Enhanced with 21st-Century Content, Devices

The surge of available bandwidth through the UPN WAN enabled the placement of numerous wireless access points throughout all school facilities. This major upgrade provides comprehensive Wi-Fi access, capable of supporting thousands of access devices. Adams50 recently added nearly 500 tablet computers and 900 handheld devices for student use.

"We had very limited wireless before," Mills says. "Now, with full Wi-Fi in all buildings, we deliver 21st-century content on all kinds of devices. Our wireless traffic has increased ten-fold." The use of these new devices is having a major impact on student learning across regular education, special education, and gifted-and-talented programs.

UPN Provides 100% Reliability & Exceptional Service

Mills happily reports that the UPN fiber network has been 100% reliable since going live at the end of 2009. "We've had zero downtime of UPN services," he says.

UPN provides networks for school districts of all sizes and is known for providing exceptional customer service. That service begins with the company’s knowledge of and proficiency in the E-Rate application process, simplifying it and helping districts maximize the potential benefits of the program. High quality service continues through design and construction of the network, and persists after the network goes live, as Mills is quick to mention. "We have a great partnership with UPN, with full disclosure and full trust," he says. "You want to be working with the best, and UPN really is."

As every IT director knows, implementing new technology on a large scale involves uncertainty. Unforeseen issues and side effects occur, vendor decisions may be questioned with the benefit of hindsight, and success can be elusive. Fortunately for Mills, this is not his reality.

"UPN is the best vendor I’ve worked with in 26 years of working in IT," Mills says. "They do whatever is necessary to make your project successful."

About Unite Private Networks

Unite Private Networks (UPN) provides high bandwidth, fiber-based communications networks and related services to schools, governments, carriers, data centers, hospitals, and enterprise business customers throughout the United States. Service offerings include dark and lit fiber, private line, metro-optical Ethernet, Internet access, data center services, and other customized solutions. Headquartered in the Kansas City MO metro area, UPN has been providing customer-focused communications solutions since 1999. UPN is privately held. For more information on UPN, please visit http://www.upnllc.com/

For more information on E-Rate funding, visit the Universal Services Administration website at http://www.usac.org/sl/.