August 2005 — Applications
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Surviving a Communications Network Overhaul
A Pennsylvania school district implements a system to provide anytime, anywhere communications for its 4,700 students and 600 staff members.
School districts across the country are embarking on long-term plans to implement technology as part of the next generation of learning. One of the catalysts for these initiatives has been the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which provides federal funding for such technology investments.
The School District of Cheltenham Township, located in Elkins Park, PA, just north of Philadelphia, has been for some time an example of an institution that sets high standards for itself in technology innovation: In the 1980s, we were recognized with a “what’s right with education” nod from the US Department of Education. Still, we wanted to improve our communications tools to facilitate greater daily operational efficiencies to all staff and faculty.
As with any major technology initiative, there were significant challenges. We needed to address slow data throughput, the failure of our communications network to support business operations across separate phone systems, and the importance of consolidating our network systems. We also underestimated what was required to enhance the educational environment and security for the school district’s 4,700 students and 600 staff members.
“With the system we now have in place, we have achieved greater results to date than were projected for our day-to-day business and operations.”
Prior to launching the communications network overhaul, we established several goals to reduce costs and increase efficiencies: We identified the need to implement district-wide communications capabilities, eliminate our old Centrex system, and increase the performance of data throughput for teachers. We were also intent on installing more useful telecommunications features such as security for text messaging, paging, and conferencing, as well as incorporating Enhanced 911 (E911), in order to be better prepared to handle emergencies.
Limitations. However, we also discovered that our school district’s aggressive technology-and-infrastructure plan had limitations. There were several factors that we had not considered, but needed to take into account when developing the new communications infrastructure. Among the considerations were teacher and staffmember reports, monitoring progress and attendance, emergency communications, systems controls, and security monitoring.
The Solution
The district soon discovered multiple areas of need to be met in order to achieve the desired communication and security results. The in-place frame relay would not support the necessary Quality of Service (QoS) required for voice communications. Therefore, we upgraded to the Transparent LAN Service (Fiber TLS) under the old federal Chapter 30 program to give educational institutions access to the latest technologies. When this stage was complete, we found that we could easily consolidate phone lines onto Verizon’s Primary Rate Interface (PRI), bringing 24 trunks per PRI. Upon installation of the PRI, the district added direct inward dialed (DID) extensions for use with the E911 protocol.
