Networking & Wireless

Princeton Public Schools Implements 500 Mbps Dedicated Internet

• By Leila Meyer
• 12/10/14

Princeton Public Schools in New Jersey has upgraded to a 500 megabit-per-second (Mbps) dedicated business-class Internet connection to support the district's increasing use of online resources and assessments.

The district is home to one preschool, four elementary schools, one middle school and one high school, serving approximately 3,500 students and employing more than 350 faculty and staff. As with many other districts, Princeton Public Schools has been using more cloud-based resources in recent years, and since New Jersey is a governing state in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) Consortium, its schools need reliable high-speed Internet connections to conduct online assessments.

In early October, the district implemented a Sunesys SunIP Internet connectivity and transport solution. According to a news release from the company, the connection "provides 500 Mbps up and down from Princeton's hub location back to two northeast-based data centers" in Newark, NJ and Philadelphia, PA. The service offers dynamic routing between multiple Tier 1 providers, as well as "primary or secondary DNS, IP addresses controlled by ARIN guidelines and a dedicated customer portal for monitoring."

"The diverse connection helps to reduce potential points of failure and the robust fiber optic transport connects directly back to our network backbone," said Peter C. Thompson, manager of information technology at Princeton Public Schools, in a prepared statement. "With Princeton's increasing reliance on cloud based resources and the growth of online assessment and testing such as PARCC, we are meeting the demand of technology needs for our students and faculty."