How long will a child wait for a map to load? Can a teacher afford to
let kids gaze on empty graphics boxes for minutes at a time?
One year ago, Richard Lemon, local visionary and director of telecommunications
for the Davis County Schools near Salt Lake City, took a dissatisfied look
at Internet use. It simply required too much patience and money. His was
one of the first districts to install 56K frame relay lines, but they weren't
performing. Especially for the graphic-intensive sites that excite elementary
students, 56 Kbps was too slow. He took that complaint to his US West representative,
Judy Weeks, along with some articles about a new technology called DSL --
Digital Subscriber Line or Digital Subscriber Loop, depending on the techie
who defines it. Engineers promise that DSL -- regardless of definition --
offers high-speed, low-cost Internet access.
In the short version of the story, persistence, meetings, promises, business
plans, and more persistence landed Lemon's district a trial that distinguished
Davis County as the first and only U.S. school district to have DSL. (Singapore
schools use DSL, disqualifying Davis from the global title.)
Contracts for connectivity in Utah's secondary schools are managed by
a state consortium, but decisions and funding for elementary schools are
local responsibilities. And so, about eight months after Lemon's initial
inquiry, Bountiful Elementary School, true to its name, switched on an entirely
more enticing World Wide Web, which Lemon says runs faster with DSL than
with the T-1 lines at the high school. At press time, Lemon expected to
have hooked up all 46 elementary schools by September. Each will have its
own DSL line terminating in a NetSpeed box, which is essentially a modem
for an Internet server.
DSL technology offers cheap and fast Internet access -- fast enough for
video. The connection is always on, and users can simultaneously surf and
use the voice line. Actually, DSL uses plain old, twisted copper telephone
lines, but new modems at each end of the network create these advanced capabilities.
Speeds typically range from a respectably speedy 192 kilobits per second
(Kbps) for around $60 per month to 1.5 million bits per second (Mbps) for
around $200 per month. Lemon estimates that the switch will allow the Davis
County Schools to cut connectivity expenses by 30 percent. That figure will
vary from school to school. Savings for schools currently using 128 Kbps
ISDN lines, for example, will depend largely on the regionally volatile
pricing of those lines.
DSL lines may even be able to service school telephone systems. This
intriguing possibility is Lemon's next experiment. Ideally, he wants Davis
County to buy the bandwidth and then decide whether to use it for voice,
data, or video. He's initially testing one telephone at each school on the
DSL line to determine quality. It might be possible to switch each school's
phone system over to the line in the future.
Drawbacks and alternatives
What's to dislike about DSL? There are some limitations. For starters,
the telephone system needs upgraded switches and newer versions of twisted
copper. Small rural districts might have the most to gain from DSL, but
adequate infrastructure is typically only available in urban areas. Also,
the recipient has to be within about 18,000 feet of the switch, and quality
degrades for those more than 9,000 feet away.
Another limitation, at least for now, is availability. Ameritech, Bell
Atlantic, Bell South, GTE, Pacific Bell, Southwestern Bell, and US West
plan to roll out the service across the country in the coming years. But
in every initial rollout, the telcos plan to market not to K-12 schools
but to consumers, small businesses, and, in rare cases, to universities.
The telcos, which are responsible to stockholders, can justify the expense
of marketing to this audience: DSL just might be the product that will tempt
home consumers and small businesses to pay more for a high-speed line --
and upgrade from a screeching dial-up line with a 28.8 Kbps modem to screaming
industrial power.
Schools that don't want to wait for a later marketing push will have
to go after DSL on their own, as Davis County did. Or they can seek alternatives,
like cable modems.
In fact, the need to compete with cable modems has driven much of the
telcos' collective motivation to build DSL infrastructure and many of their
decisions as to where to introduce it first. Cable companies across the
country are in the process of introducing their new coaxial Internet services.
The technology has downstream capabilities of 27 Mbps, but because this
bandwidth has to be shared by all users, 1.5 Mbps is a more realistic expectation,
and this is the bandwidth typically allotted to schools. Upstream rates
are about 786 kbps. Consumer pricing for cable modems is around $40 per
month.
Unlike telcos, cable companies are aggressively placing their Internet
technology in schools via Cable's
High Speed Education Connection from the National
Cable Television Association. Each industry participant has pledged
to provide one free, high-speed cable modem and free high-speed service
for one computer in each school passed by the upgraded, bi-directional cable
infrastructure. A teacher-training component also figures prominently in
the offering.
Home markets through homework?
Internet pioneer David Hughes, whose work on wireless
networks was profiled in the January 1997 issue of Electronic School,
is baffled by the telcos turning their collective DSL backs on the school
market. Certainly not one to credit telephone companies with vast wisdom,
he thinks they're missing key customers. In Hughes' view, the consumer/small
business market for high-speed lines is dangerously limited. A much broader
audience will be encouraged to subscribe, he says, if DSL gives kids and
parents access to school information.
"If a school is equipped with DSL, then it's much more likely that
students, homes, and teachers will be," says Hughes. "[Families]
need multimedia access," he explains. "They've got the dual phone
problem like everybody else. If they get a second line, they still have
to live with the slow rate of speed." Plus, he adds, telcos could train
their future markets to expect high speed access. The wireless evangelist
even endorses DSL technology, especially if it can simultaneously reduce
the cost of a school's voice telephone system.
Hughes' logic for school sales might eventually prevail in the behemoth
marketing channels of the phone companies, but until then, don't look for
many DSL sales troops knocking on your schoolhouse door.
"Give it serious consideration; press for any telco to make it available,"
advises Lemon, pointing out that the high speeds and savings reach beyond
Internet access to all data services.
Proactivity pays
Schools that want DSL lines will probably need to be proactive, but maybe
not to the degree that Lemon was. To establish this trial, the Davis County
schools had to agree to be available for US West publicity and to commit
to a vision of voice, video, and data on a single bandwidth. That required
approval by a vast hierarchy of administrators and the school board. Lynn
V. Trenbeath, assistant superintendent, adds that a long-standing relationship
between US West and the district, combined with strategic geographic placement
in Utah's wiring infrastructure, helped the district get ahead of the technology
curve.
US West, in a request suggesting the company is not entirely unaware
of Hughes' suggested marketing strategy, wanted to see a business plan from
the district defining whether the lines were a viable vehicle to expand
into the home market. The telephone company wanted to know if parents with
DSL lines could access useful school information and whether working at
home was a viable option for some employees. The demographics were favorable:
In student surveys, 80 percent reported having computers at home. US West
had already tapped a school-home promotional channel by offering parents
and students within Davis County Schools discounted dial-up connections
at $10.95 per month.
Most significantly, from Lemon's perspective, the telco's market needs
fit his pedagogical goals: more curriculum resources and increased home/school
communications. "When we first started, we looked at the [educational]
value it had," says US West's Weeks. "In Davis County, there are
real concerns to make sure parents are part of the education system."
Lemon anticipates the DSL lines will provide more than web curriculum
content -- including increased home-school communications and parental involvement.
He has already built a system for his district that permits parents to check
grades for particular assignments and attendance. Teachers take attendance
and record grades on the school computer system. Attendance information
is available to authorized users moments after class begins. (Indeed, says
Weeks, a recent demonstration of the system at a local business displayed
an uncharacteristic tardiness for the presenter's straight-A son.)
Teachers also frequently work from home, not only accessing the network
but working collaboratively with other teachers, schools, and universities.
"We'd like to do student registration remotely," says Lemon, listing
future plans for the network. Another item on his wish list is online academic
planning -- which would include the ability to make appointments with counselors.
Eventually, he hopes for a school without walls where all courseware is
available at an acceptable speed at home or elsewhere.
Connect and deliver
But the real payoff is near-instant access to the rich curriculum offerings
on the web. "It's lightning fast. You click and your page is there,"
says Diane Smith, an instructional specialist and technology trainer at
Davis County's educational technology center. Without the speedy connections,
she says, "a lot of teachers have thrown their hands in the air and
said they don't have time for this. Despite lots of training, Internet usage
just did not happen."
Smith used bookmarks; she cached favorite sites; but nothing attracted
instructors. And because students can spend only brief amounts of time working
on a computer -- either in a lab or in the classroom -- frustration with
slow-loading or unavailable sites was high. Smith says that some of the
preferred sites required half an hour to load, when even a few minutes was
too long.
Smith has seen a significant increase in Internet use since DSL removed
those frustrations. Heavily accessed and thus sluggish sites are now available
on demand. Photos require no wait. Music flows smoothly. Satellite images
zip right in. "There are incredible resources out there that teachers
have hesitated to use because of the time that it took to access them,"
explains Smith.
Smith makes heavy use of sites funded by advertising or established as
promotional efforts rather than sites requiring subscription fees. She has
toured education sites that require subscription fees, but no matter how
impressed she might be with these resources, she has no budget for them.
Indeed, she expects the district's subscriptions to print products to dwindle.
But now the swift availability of Internet resources makes that a much less
frightening prospect.
To learn more about DSL in Davis County, call Lynn V. Trenbeath,
assistant superintendent responsible for all support services including
technology, (801) 451-1270, or J. Dale Christensen, administrator of support
systems with direct responsibilities for technology, (801) 451-1356.
Mary Axelson edits the Heller Reports'
newsletter, Internet Strategies
for Education Markets. |
