As wish lists go, this one didn't shoot the moon. The Cheltenham School District wanted voice and data connectivity in all its classrooms. The district wanted to make its online grading application more widely available and add an E911 capability that could pinpoint specific classroom numbers in the event of an emergency.

Working with Verizon and Alcatel, the schools are adding those capabilities as they deploy managed Ethernet services across their 20-square-mile district just north of Philadelphia. "We have convergence that results in better information to the classroom, which means better quality of information for students," says Gary Bixby, director of facilities and support services for the district.

Local- and metro-area managed Ethernet services are a great fit for the education sector, given the high density and distributed nature of its end users. Whether it's a university or a K-12 school, educational institutions frequently lack the personnel and budget to manage and administer thousands of Ethernet drops.

"Education is the second largest vertical industry for Ethernet services, accounting for 29% of total U.S. ports," says Erin Dunne, director of research services for consultancy Vertical Systems Group. Ethernet is well suited for campus connectivity, high-bandwidth applications such as video learning or research.

Monthly per-port charges range from $1,000 to $10,000, depending on the speed of their connection (typically above 1.5 M bit/sec and up to 1G bit or more), the school's distance from a carrier's point of presence, and whether the link is carrier-owned or resold by a third party, Dunne says.

Procuring pipes

A hunger for high bandwidth led the Information Science Institute (ISI), part of the University of Southern California (USC), to join the Los Nettos Consortium. Los Nettos provides fat pipes and Internet access through Verio, Cogent Communications and other carriers. The Los Nettos Consortium includes USC, CalTech, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Northrop Grumman Space Technology.

For about $8,300 a month, ISI gets a 100M bit/sec connection that can burst up to 1G bit if traffic loads permit. Los Nettos provides IP addresses for ISI's demilitarized zone and handles the Border Gateway Protocol peering among the consortium members.