District to own fiber network, speed up school internet

MISSOULA (AP) — A Missoula school district will be the first in the state to own its internet fiber network.

Students can expect faster internet with the installation of a 21-mile fiber optic network underneath the city.

Voters approved a total of $158 million in bonds last year, and $3.2 million is funding the fiber project.

The federal E-Rate program could reimburse $1.8 million to the district.

A contractor is building the network and the school will later own it.

District officials estimate savings to reach $3 million in 20 years.

Fiber lease contracts were considered, including a 10-year agreement for $3 million.

The district will start a bidding process soon to contract with an internet provider.

Hatton Littman, director of technology and communication, says this will be a great investment for the district.

He said it took years of investigating before district technology staff realized Montana internet service was not competitively priced or fast.

“That was the component that when we analyzed, we found out how slow our speeds were,” Littman said. “We also learned that the market price for those services was not competitive in Montana, and not competitive on the national level.

“The increase in speed for data transmission between buildings will go from 100 (megabits per second) to 10 gig. That’s a 100-fold increase in data transmission speeds on the wide area network.”

Network coordinator Maurice Austin said the district is breaking ground with this project.

“We only had 25 mbps when I started here 10 years ago,” Austin said. “You would start up your computer and it was a struggle for the network.”