Bright House Networks has landed a multi-year services contract with Orange County Public Schools, which is the largest school district in Florida and the 10th-largest public school district in the nation.
The contract calls for Bright House Networks to build a dedicated, private Metro Ethernet fiber network to connect all of Orange County Public Schools’ 218 separate site locations. Bright House Networks will provide all Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) locations with Metro Ethernet transport and dedicated Internet access, managed routers, managed security – including firewall, content filtering and intrusion prevention – voice services over Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and Wi-Fi service.
The service is slated to go live on Sunday.
“Bright House Networks has one of the most reliable fiber network infrastructures available in the Central Florida area, and we are pleased to further expand our relationship with OCPS by providing a complete, managed fiber-based network for all of their locations,” said Kevin Hyman, national executive vice president of cable operations at Bright House Networks. “Our employees live and work in the communities that we serve, and we are committed to supporting Orange County Public Schools through this partnership, in addition to our existing student and community educational programs and sponsorships.”
Bright House Networks Business Solutions delivers triple-play services over a dedicated facilities-based network. Its fiber backbone incorporates multiple 10 Gbps Ethernet connections to accommodate large bandwidth requirements. The company also provides 24/7/365 staffed customer service devoted to system monitoring and proactive notification.
“Orange County Public Schools continue to invest in technologies that will help us deliver the best education possible to our students. The Bright House Networks contract will provide us greater bandwidth capacity for schools and work sites and afford more Internet resources for student instruction,” said Michael Eugene, chief operating officer at OCPS. “Plus we expect to realize almost two million dollars less expense annually, running on the Bright House facilities-based fiber network.”