Report: State Web not best school option

Private sector can provide Net needs, consultant says

Arkansas schools can reach Internet access goals without using or creating a statewide "backbone" network, according to a consultant's report presented to legislators Wednesday.

The report from CT&T Inc., a North Little Rock consultant hired by the Legislature earlier this year, said the state did not need to use a distribution network such as the Arkansas Research Education Optical Network, known as ARE-ON, to reach its goals.

The report also said connecting to ARE-ON would not be cost effective because Internet prices are declining more quickly for private-service providers than for large bundled services purchased through networks such as ARE-ON.

ARE-ON is a public-private partnership that uses high-capacity Internet cable -- owned by the private providers and leased and managed by a public entity -- to connect the state's public universities, two-year colleges, research hospitals and some libraries.

A state law prohibits kindergarten-12th-grade schools from joining the network. And whether to change that law has been a source of contention between education advocates and private Internet service providers over the past year.

CT&T's findings differ from those presented two weeks ago by the nonprofit EducationSuperHighway, which recommended a long-term plan of creating a state-managed aggregated broadband network that could include parts of ARE-ON.

House Speaker-elect Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, who led the charge to conduct the CT&T study to get an accurate school district level picture of high-speed Internet access, said he thought the movement to change the law to open ARE-ON has been quashed.

"I think for the time being we will hit the pause button in terms of discussion centered on ARE-ON. I think in the next session you will see a lot of discussion over whether we need a backbone network at all," Gillam said. "I think for the time being people are going to look at those cost studies we were given. We basically have two studies that said it is not cost-effective to go down that route, and this one saying that a backbone is not necessary at all."

The CT&T study estimated that if the state were to allow K-12 schools to sign onto ARE-ON, depending on how the arrangement was made, it would cost the state as much as $227 million to build the necessary fiber network to reach the classrooms. An option that would use just ARE-ON hubs as connectors for private-service provider infrastructure was estimated to cost the state about $1.4 million. Those costs are in addition to annual fees for maintenance, management and other expenses.

Jody Craft, project manager for CT&T, said if the state opted to let private-service providers handle the school district needs, it would cost about $5.3 million to reach the almost 160 schools that do not have adequate cable infrastructures. Overall, 89 of the 257 public school districts did not meet the current standard of 100 kilobits per second per student.

Legislators have been debating for more than a year how to move forward with increased high-speed broadband Internet access for the state's schools.

The conversation has shifted to become part of the state's educational adequacy plan because some districts have argued that the gap in technological access may create a gap in educational opportunities.

Lack of access to broadband has started causing problems as more standardized tests are moved to online formats. Also, Act 1280 of 2013 requires that every school district provide at least one interactive online course.

A detailed report from consulting group EducationSuperHighway was released earlier this month, recommending that the state take a two-part approach to getting high-speed broadband access to school districts.

The nonprofit recommended a short-term goal of reallocating $11 million spent by the Education Department on antiquated state-supplied Internet services. The money would fund a one-year contract for services through multiple private Internet providers.

EducationSuperHighway's suggested long-term plan would build a statewide network for kindergarten-12th-grade schools that would purchase Internet capacity in bulk, lowering the cost to school districts.

Both CT&T and EducationSuperHighway recommended ending the Education Department's funding for the Department of Information Systems' services through the Arkansas Public School Computer Network. The $11 million annual expense is used to purchase about 5 percent of the overall Internet capacity of school districts. The system uses expensive and antiquated copper network infrastructure, much of it provided by AT&T, the report said.

School districts purchase 95 percent of their Internet through private providers for about $8 million per year, at an average cost of about $13 per megabit. The Department of Information Systems' rate is about $286 per megabit.

Kilobits, megabits and gigabits per second are measures of data-transfer rates. The more data that can move per second over the Internet, the faster the Internet connection, which makes it easier to stream videos or participate in live classes or tests.

The CT&T study went further in its criticism of the Department of Information Systems, noting that about $36 million in federal E-rate funding requests were on hold and under review by the Federal Communications Commission or had been denied.

The problems go back to 2011, when the Department of Information Systems requested $22.4 million and was funded for $12.3 million. In 2012, the numbers got worse, with $22.7 million requested and about $2.7 million funded. It decreased its funding request in 2013 to about $9.3 million, of which $3.1 million was funded.

Comparatively, individual requests from the school districts were funded at a level between 92 percent and 95 percent during those years.

The report from CT&T recommended "immediate intervention" in the E-rate reimbursement request process. The Department of Education had hired an outside company in the past two months to file E-rate reimbursement requests from now on, but tracking the funds that are being reviewed by the FCC for 2011-13 is still the responsibility of the Department of Information Systems.

According to the report, there were several problems within the Department of Information Systems' applications, including what Craft said were "values throughout the applications that do not match." Craft said E-rate allows requests for reimbursement for infrastructure that directly serves education institutions, but the study found that about 35 percent of the Arkansas Public School Computer Network provided Internet services to non-educational agencies.

The report estimated that the Department of Information Systems charged a 13.8 percent markup to provide Internet services to school districts, but Craft said that number was likely higher because the Department of Information Systems charged for overhead costs involved in the Arkansas Public School Computer Network that are not directly related to Internet service.

"It's out of whack, in our opinion," he said.

Craft said CT&T had trouble confirming information about the E-rate review and whether the Arkansas Public School Computer Network utilization caused the funding issues. The group recommended appointing one person to be the point of contact to deal with the funding requests still under review.

Both the CT&T study and the EducationSuperHighway study contradict a request for contract proposals issued by the Department of Education for Internet providers to participate in a backbone-driven Internet network. Education Commissioner Tony Wood said after the hearing Wednesday that the department planned to move forward with its proposal and acted quickly because of deadline constraints to apply for E-rate reimbursement in 2015.

Metro on 12/18/2014

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