Networking & Wireless

South San Antonio ISD Upgrades Broadband Network

• By Leila Meyer
• 03/09/16

South San Antonio Independent School District (SSAISD) has upgraded to a private, fiber-optic broadband network to support data, video and voice services at the district's 16 schools and administrative facilities.

The district is aggressively ramping up its digital learning platforms and needed a faster and more scalable network to support those initiatives, said Ramiro Zuniga, director of technology for SSAISD, in a news release. The district selected a new fiber-optic network from Conterra Broadband Services. The multi-gigabit network serves nearly 10,000 students and more than 1,350 staff members, and Conterra monitors, manages and supports the network around the clock, every day. In the future, the district will be able to scale up the network to 100 gigabits per location without any additional construction.

"The network must work and provide the speed and scalability to support all our digital initiatives of the district," said Zuniga. "The demands on our infrastructure will grow exponentially, and we are now prepared to meet those demands head-on for a very long time."

According to information on the company's site, Conterra's private, fiber optic broadband Internet service features bandwidth from 10 megabits per second (Mbps) to 10 gigabits per second (Gbps), a dedicated local loop, support of IPv4 and IPv6, low latency and at least 99.99 percent availability.

Other Texas school districts that have implemented Conterra's private, fiber optic broadband Internet service include Mansfield ISD, El Paso ISD, Judson ISD and Tyler ISD.