The Plymouth Community School Corporation stands to save a great deal of money by switching Internet service providers.
The school board voted Tuesday to switch to Windstream, at the recommendation of Chief Tech Officer Bruce Johnson. “Our current provider is ENA,” he said. “Right now, monthly, we’re spending about $5,520 for our Internet pipe and building connectivity. My recommendation would be we go with Windstream. You’ll see there a much cheaper price of $1,791 a month. So multiply it by 12, we’re looking at an annual savings of about $44,000.” Those prices are after an 80-percent discount is applied, due to the corporation’s population of low-income students.
Johnson explained that up until now, schools’ Internet service contracts were handled by the Indiana Department of Education. “The DOE has decided that their termination of that contract is June this year. And so they are basically opening it up to corporations to bid, and what I think you’ll see is that is going to prove very positive for us in Plymouth Community Schools.” Johnson said Windstream was one of four qualified bidders to turn in proposals.
He said the change won’t require any adjustments to Plymouth Schools’ infrastructure, but the corporation will have to buy a block of public IP addresses for about $120.
