FORT SMITH -- An upgraded computer network set to give both rural and urban students across Arkansas improved access to the Internet was unveiled Wednesday.
The debut came as an impasse between the state and a telecommunications company ended, clearing the way for the state to receive millions of federal dollars to assist with the overhaul.
Benny Gooden, superintendent for the Fort Smith School District; Mark Myers, director of the Department of Information Systems; and Johnny Key, commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education, ceremoniously plugged network cables into a switch box in Fort Smith to signal the initiation of the upgraded, faster network.
"If our students today are going to compete with students all around the world, they're going to have to have these kind of skills and we're going to have to have the speed," Gooden said. "That's what this network does for us."
In a cool, windowless server room next to where he stood, computer equipment began sending and receiving data over newly installed fiber-optic lines throughout the school district.
Fort Smith was connected first because a contract with a previous Internet service provider was set to expire and relatively little work was needed to wire district schools to the upgraded network, Myers said.
The district's 14,000 students use more than 13,000 devices to connect to the Internet. Before Wednesday, the school received Internet through the Arkansas Public School Computer Network and a private provider.
Now, the district's 26 schools will experience increased speeds but will connect solely through the state network.
"I remind the young people who work in my office -- I have neckties that are older than some of the people in my office -- I just want [them] to remember that I got along just fine before all this stuff," said Gooden, who became superintendent in 1986.
"But we can't do it now."
Cox Communications bid $551,649.60 to connect the district. Fiber-optic cabling, installed 15 years ago, already connected the district's 26 schools, but more fiber had to be laid and other hardware upgrades were needed to connect the district to the upgraded network, Myers said.
The ceremony in Fort Smith marks the beginning of two years of construction projects throughout the state to connect the remaining 275 school districts to the Arkansas Public School Computer Network.
Myers said the average speed per student is currently 5 kilobits per second. The upgraded network is starting at 200 kilobits per second per student -- 40 times as fast.
The speed is necessary for students to take advantage of online information and though Arkansas is switching standardized assessments, testing will be done online, Key said.
"If you look, especially in western Arkansas between here and Texarkana, a lot of school districts just didn't have the access to broadband that they needed," he said. "This is going to give those students an opportunity they have not had before."
Myers said it's going to take another two years to connect the remaining school districts to the network.
The Federal Communications Commission is paying the majority of the upgrade cost but is requiring a transition plan from the state before the money is disbursed.
On Wednesday, Myers said the Department of Information Systems will release a transition plan for the remaining school districts in the coming weeks.
At an Advanced Communications and Information Technology joint committee meeting at the Arkansas Capitol on Monday, Myers said the plan had been held up because CenturyLink had questioned whether Arkansas' procurement process for school broadband upgrades complied with federal rules.
But on Wednesday, Myers said the company had signed off on its transition plan, allowing the state to move forward with the federal government. About $15 million in federal funding was at stake.
The Monroe, La.-based company is tasked with hooking up 31 school districts around the state at a cost of $4.65 million.
In total, the upgraded Arkansas Public School Computer Network will cost at least $64 million.
"It's a significant investment," Myers said of the statewide network. "That connection is expensive, but it's what the students of Arkansas deserve."
Metro on 07/16/2015