In Indiana it's even more interesting.  The state bid out control of the state 
networks years ago and a Tennessee Company ENA.com won and now controls all the 
public school network funding. We have 5 School corp.'s in the county and I 
have networks towers within a mile from each.  But since I am not a telco or 
supply a fiber line they get each of the school's 2-5 T1's from Verizon @ $485/ 
T1.  I offered a 10meg connection to each interconnecting all the schools and I 
cant even get a call back from ENA. Talking to the local schools just gets a 
phone number to call ENA.

Steve Barnes
RC-WiFi Wireless Internet Service


-----Original Message-----
From: wireless-boun...@wispa.org [mailto:wireless-boun...@wispa.org] On Behalf 
Of Kevin Owen
Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2010 11:17 PM
To: WISPA General List
Subject: [WISPA] State Education Networks?

The State I provide service in (Idaho) is in the process of building a 
Statewide Educational Network.  I am interested in hearing from any of you are 
providing service in a State that has built a State Educational Network and if 
so, are local providers used to provide any of the last miles services to the 
schools?

Idaho started by saying they would work with the local providers, however, now 
they have changed their tune and local providers are not given the opportunity 
to even bid on the service.

Qwest is charging at least 3 - 5 times what any of the other local ISP's could 
or would charge for the same or more bandwidth.  We are simply told we are not 
able to provide the service due to technical reasons, however, the State thus 
far has not defined what those technical reasons are.  The difference in cost 
per year is in the millions.

Our State IT group is also saying this is how it is done in other states to 
provide a quality and cost effective network.

So does anybody provide any last mile services to any Statewide educational 
network?

Thanks,

Kevin
First Step Internet, LLC


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