Thanks to Ann Higgins for the heads up on the big Colorado award. Because it’s Sunday, I’ll give just a snippet of the article and say that I’m suffering a little broadband envy today.
But the state won a $100.6 million federal grant that will be combined with $34.7 million in matching contributions to help build an affordable broadband network across the state, providing access for as many as 230 community institutions — including 178 school districts, 26 libraries and 12 community colleges.
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Under the new system, speeds initially will be between 20 megabits per second to 1 gigabit per second, with growth capacity to 10Gbps.
The project will be managed by EAGLE_Net, a group that focused on educational access and technology use
And those 178 school districts represent EVERY school district in the state, working together. wow. Their white paper said:
“So what is the best approach to solve this broad based statewide dilemma? A viable approach would be the development of a cost sharing consortium. This would provide the capability for districts to work together to pool their needs and purchase concentrated amounts of larger bandwidth at strategic points of connectivity to be more effectively packaged and delivered to a broader distributed base of common aggregation points.”
Colorado is focused on Metro Denver much as Minnesota is focused on the Twin Cities. Hope someone in MN is watching how this project comes together.
Kind of amazing, huh?