Orange County Public Schools Inks Network Deal with ENA
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3/8/2007—Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) in Florida has signed a contract with Education Networks of America (ENA) to provide broadband access to the district's school. The three-year deal, which includes two one-year renewal options, calls for ENA to provide a managed high-speed network throughout the district and to build in scalability for future expansion.
ENA is a managed ISP that creates and deploys networks and technologies for school systems.
"We are selecting ENA because, we believe, based on their exemplary K-12 track record, they are the best qualified service provider who competed in our rigorous RFP process. They will be accountable and responsible for end to end connectivity from every one of our sites all the way to the Internet," said Charles T. Thompson, CIO for OCPS, in a prepared statement. "We are confident that ENA can help us reach our goal of increased Internet service capacity with a high speed network designed to scale to 10 gigabits of connectivity and beyond. This will increase productivity and enhance teaching and learning throughout our schools by giving us a highly scaleable network that is not only capable of securely supporting data, voice and video on a single network but also able to meet the growing needs of our diverse and rapidly expanding student population."
Orange County Public Schools serves more than 177,000 students across 170 schools and employs more than 25,000 staff. The district said it projects adding up to 5,500 students and four to 10 new school sites per year. (OCPS opened 69 schools between 1990 and 2006.) About 50,000 of the district's school computers will have Internet access through the network that ENA deploys. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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About the author: Dave Nagel is the executive editor for 1105 Media's educational technology online publications and electronic newsletters. He can be reached at [email protected].
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