Improving K-12 Education in Amarillo, TX

Greater control, enhanced security and high-capacity connectivity

A highly capable and reliable network environment provisioned by FiberLight.

Profile

The Amarillo Independent School District (AISD), based in the city of Amarillo, Texas, is a district spanning nearly 70 square miles of land in Randall and Potter County with 58 locations and serving over 32,500 students. With a network of locations that encompass every phase of the K-12 learning lifecycle as well as specialized instruction locations, AISD is dedicated to helping students comprehensively prepare for college and beyond.

Foundation for a future network development

Solutions: Dark Fiber

Two-tiered network
Accelerated performance
Augmented control
Increased scalability
Better security

80% Equipment Costs Covered

70mi Dark Fiber Expansion

We realized that building our own network would protect our budget and bottom line as well as provide new levels of flexibility needed to expand schools, increase bandwidth and remove restrictions—giving us free rein to do what we wanted with our network.

Jeff D. Roller

CTO, AISD

70-mile Dark Fiber Network Expansion

With the FCC’s Category 1 E-rate program and the Texas State Legislature’s matching funds, the dark fiber network buildout was 100 percent subsidized.

CHALLENGE:

Due to changes in the Texas State Legislature funding at the time, AISD’s current network service charges were increasing from $14,000 per month for 1Gbps connections to almost half a million. With its existing infrastructure, the level of robust bandwidth and on-site hosting capabilities necessary to support these learning and security measures was unavailable and not financially viable.

SOLUTION:

To position AISD for long-term growth, deliver network agility and control, enable student access to digital opportunities, enhance security and pave the way for new developments, FiberLight was chosen to deploy a 70-mile dark fiber network expansion.

With the FCC’s Category 1 E-rate program and the Texas State Legislature’s matching funds, the dark fiber network buildout was 100 percent subsidized. With networking equipment also eligible under Category 1, 80 percent of the equipment was covered as well.