Billings is the largest city in the state of Montana and continues to experience growth thanks to a diverse economy. Billings Public Schools serve approximately 16,000 students and manage one of the largest computer networks in the state of Montana. The school district needed a network solution that could handle the amount of users on the network.

Connecting Students in the 21st Century

The Billings Public Schools technology department was tasked with upgrading the existing network infrastructure throughout the district’s 22 elementary school sites. Outlined in the district’s five-year-plan is the Billings Public Schools Technology Plan, which includes mandates for:

• Providing teachers with current technologies, training and support.
• Creating opportunities for students to become active participants in their own learning.
• Using technology as a tool to improve the education of their students to prepare them to become future leaders in the global community.

“A bond was passed that included an allocation for technology upgrades,” says Larry Bybee, Network Manager, Billings Public Schools. “We wanted to rewire our elementary schools because they were running on old, failing copper wire.”

Bybee initially set out to implement the large-scale project using a traditional infrastructure based on copper wiring, but soon realized the bond wouldn’t cover the costs.

“As we started to research the project, we realized we couldn’t upgrade all of the schools because the cost to rewire them all was too great,” Bybee says. “Then our technology consultant, Kris Good of the CTA Architects Engineers, suggested we check out GPON.”

GPON, or Gigabit Passive Optical Network, is a cost-effective, high-performance fiberbased solution that has several advantages over traditional copper-based implementations, including:

• Decreased power consumption
• Faster time to implement
• More cost effective
• Minimal space requirements
• Easier to install
• Fewer system disruptions post-installation

Through his extensive research, Bybee learned that by deploying a GPON LAN, Billings Public Schools could expect to benefit from significant cost savings, reduced square footage required to implement a large-scale system, and rapid speed of implementation when compared to a similar copper-based solution.

Bybee worked with Kyle Brucker, Director of Technology, Billings Public Schools, to draft a proposal for the Billings school board outlining their plan to implement GPON at a single school site. Arrowhead Elementary would act as a test case before a full-scale rollout across all 22 campuses in the Billings Public Schools district. Ultimately, the success of that initial test site resulted in a district-wide rollout plan at the elementary school level.

A Flawless Solution that Reduces Technology Costs

As a publically funded school district, the Billings Public Schools technology department must work within budget limitations as defined by the funds available through a public bond and federal rebate programs. Tasked with the goal of updating the technology platforms across all 22 elementary schools in the district, Bybee realized he had to identify a solution that was both cost effective and long term.

“Part of our proposal included competitive bids on implementing copper versus FiberLAN GPON, and we saw significant savings with the GPON solution,” says Bybee.

Initial estimates to deploy a traditional category 6 copper-based solution came in at $205,000, for a single school site, McKinley Elementary School. In stark contrast, the GPON installation using Zhone Technologies access equipment cost approximately $65,000, for a savings of $140,000. Using that cost basis as an estimate, Billings Public Schools saved approximately 3 million dollars in total by upgrading all its school sites with a fiber-based LAN system.

“It’s impossible to ignore such significant cost savings,” Bybee says. “Thanks to the Zhone solution, we should have the funds to implement upgraded Internet platforms across our entire roster of 22 elementary schools.”

The Billings Public Schools deployment is based on Zhone Technologies’ GPON platform, with Zhone’s zNID 2624P and 2608T indoor GPON Optical Network Terminals (ONT) at the foundation of the implementation. These four-port and eight-port ONTs have unique configurations that support the various video, data and other Internet services the Billings Public Schools population requires.

The Zhone Technologies solution provided substantial cost savings to Billings. Traditional copper-based implementations can result in significant re-wiring efforts that typically require not only expensive copper wiring, but also the participation of a general contractor to repair walls and install telecommunications closets to house the largescale equipment. In contrast, Zhone’s GPON implementation includes materials that cost less and require less square footage.

Latest Resource

An Educator’s Guide to Podcasting at School

Podcasting has taken off as a means of entertainment, news and education in the past few years.