School's local area network speed is boosted exponentially by the towers

Tag : wireless networking
Fiber optic cable installation was completed in August, providingMcKinley Elementary, Tibbetts Middle School, Northeast Elementary,Hermosa Middle School, Ladera Del Norte Elementary, Central Kitchenand Exceptional Programs with connection speeds in excess of 1,000Mbps.
Some institutions were too far away to be connected by fiber opticcable to the district's core services, located at the CentralOffice and the Career and Technology Education center. That's whynine wireless towers were built during the past week near schoolsacross the district.
Animas Elementary, Hei-ghts Middle School, Piedra Vista HighSchool, Country Club Elementary, Mesa View Middle School, BluffviewElementary and McCormick Elementary have a connection speed of 100Mbps thanks to the towers.
Rocinante Alternative High School and Mesa Verde Elementary Schoolare connected by a fiber optic cable to the tower at Heights.
"Most (private Internet users) who are working with DSL are gettinganywhere from less than 1 Mbps to a max of pretty much 5 Mpbs,"said Charles Thacker, chief technology officer for FarmingtonMunicipal Schools.
The towers and the wireless wide area network they channel werecontracted to Trillion, a networking company that catersexclusively to school districts. Installation of the towers didn'tcome without setbacks; construction crews had to drill throughlayers of river rock and sandstone at some sites.
The last tower was completed Wednesday at Heights.
After the towers were installed, cleanup crews went around tosmooth the areas and collect loose debris. Then technicians connected schools to the network and began troubleshootingThursday.
"All the sites that have a tower are using them right now as theirmain mode of connection," Thacker said.
The laptops provided to middle-schoolers don't connect directly tothe wide area network. Students connect to the their school's localarea network, but the school's local area network speed is boostedexponentially by the towers.
Thacker used the analogy of a highway and a neighborhood, with thelocal area network being the neighborhood and wide area network thehighway. The neighborhood could be well-paved, but if there is onlya single-lane dirt highway leading out of it, nothing's goinganywhere fast.
"We've given all of our students these Ferraris, these greatlaptops; the problem was we didn't have this great four-lanehighway connecting them," Thacker said.
Farmington administrators hoped to have the network in place beforethe beginning of the school year, but design delays and contractcomplications delayed completion by about two months. Most of thesnags were from legal documents and other required paperwork.
"We were hoping to be able to get through that faster than weactually did," Thacker said.
Esperanza Elementary School and Apache Elementary School still arenot hooked up to the network. Technicians hope to get Esperanzaconnected by a fiber optic cable within a few weeks, but Apache isproving to be a tougher challenge.
School officials are entering talks with the city of Farmington andlocal businesses to see if there are any existing fiber opticcables that might be shared with Apache.
G. Jeff Golden: jgolden@daily-times.com