The City of Ammon’s municipal fiber network recently stepped in to provide primary broadband access for School District 93 as the state’s educational network went dark reports Local News 8. Watch the video of local coverage below.
When a judge ruled last year that the Idaho Education Network (IEN) contract between the state Department of Administration was void, an education broadband crisis loomed across the state. As the drama played out, however, local networks such as Ammon’s muni, have come to the rescue to keep students connected.
Ammon Mayor Dana Kirkham described an attitude characteristic of municipal networks:
“I think it’s just something we do in the spirit of collaboration, and I think that’s always important because when we talk about the school district and the city it’s all the same people, and so anytime we can keep costs down it benefits everyone involved,” Kirkham said.
CenturyLink and Education Networks of America (ENA) were providers under the contract voided last year. As CenturyLink and ENA cut off service to schools, forcing them to negotiate their own contracts, they have discovered better, more affordable broadband from local providers like Ammon. A recent Idaho State Journal reported on several school districts:
The state, under the now-void IEN contract, had been paying Education Networks of America more than $6,000 a month for a 20 Mbps Internet service to Rockland School District. The school district will pay less than a third of that cost for a new 100 Mbps service next year.
The State Journal also discovered that numerous school districts had used fiber optic service from local providers but were forced to switch to slower service in order to obtain the IEN reimbursement. In order to get the reimbursement, West Side School District had to switch from fiber from Direct Communications, a local company, to a slow copper T1 connection from CenturyLink:
Once the IEN contract was in place, the Idaho taxpayers were saddled with paying over $8000 a month for outdated copper service to that same location.
[Direct Communications Marketing Director Brigham] Griffin said Preston [School District] was in the same boat. It had been getting fiber-optic Internet from Direct Communications, but had to switch to copper to have the state pick up the tab.
“Preston School District will now receive double their previous speed for about a fifth of the monthly cost,” Griffin said.
Though it is incredibly frustrating to see how Idaho has hurts its schools while funnelling extra tax dollars to CenturyLink, it is not as rare as you might think. Many states have these kind of “deals” with the large phone companies. We have long covered the depressing story in Wisconsin, where AT&T has successfully lobbied to hobble WiscNet, an arrangement that brings tremendous cost savings to local budgets and better connections to schools.
This is more evidence for a point we have long made: building better networks does not necessary have to cost a lot more. We spend so much money inefficiently that eliminating these crony capitalism deals would free up significant funds to be spent more wisely.
In Ammon, Mayor Kirkham summed up the situation:
“This is always an argument for local control so whenever you have local control, then you aren’t at the mercy of the decisions being made higher up the ladder and so this is one of those instances where you see that being played out,” Kirkham said.
