Second bite of E-Rate cherry sweeter
ApplianSys is pleased to announce that Dartmouth Public Schools has chosen a CACHEBOX solution to secure a more responsive web service, thanks to funding from E-Rate – a US Universal Funding programme.
Wanting to guarantee fast delivery of learning content in its high school, Dartmouth originally applied for a cache for the 2016/17 school year. However, when the district decided to reallocate budget elsewhere, the E-Rate application was withdrawn.
But with network traffic growing, the district’s bandwidth became increasingly congested – slowing down web access. Complaints from teachers were increasing. When demand spiked – often many times during the school day – content just wouldn’t arrive fast enough for it to be effective during lessons.
So, the district upgraded bandwidth capacity. Yet, despite achieving almost twice the recommended bandwidth per student (271kbps versus 100kbps), complaints of slow web access remained.
With talk of 1:1 implementation on the horizon, Dartmouth’s Chief Technology Officer Jonathon Gallishaw was concerned the already saturated network would be unable to cope – and that more bandwidth wouldn’t be the answer. So, he returned to his original plan to let caching take the strain, reapplying for E-Rate funding for a CACHEBOX solution.
Following CACHEBOX’s deployment, those traffic spikes have vanished. And yet, with increasing amounts of simultaneous learning content now being served locally, from cache storage, Dartmouth’s bandwidth is being effectively multiplied.
“Many US districts easily exceed the per pupil bandwidth target, yet still suffer from serious congestion. With repeat demand peaking many times that of average demand, caching is the obvious answer,” says Sergio Villegas, CACHEBOX consultant. “Serving content locally dramatically slashes usage, freeing up capacity for other things. Dartmouth now has enough for its planned increase in devices.”
About
Dartmouth Public Schools is a suburban district in Massachusetts made up of 4 elementary, 1 middle and 1 high school – catering for almost 4000 students. The district wants to equip students with the skills to become life-long learners by ‘learning with, and learning about, technology’.