District/School Administration PK-16 Program Support
Educational Technology

1998 EdTech Update Report

Mass Community Network Plan

The Mass Community Network's dedicated state-wide high-speed network will connect public schools, municipal offices, libraries, and communities. Aggregate demand will enable advanced services at a tremendous cost savings to the Commonwealth.

One of the Commonwealth's greatest technology assets, and one of its best-kept secrets, is buried underneath the Mass Turnpike. The asset is MITI, a super high capacity fiberoptic cable running the length of the turnpike.

The goal of the Mass Community Network is to use MITI to build out a state-wide dedicated network for schools, municipal buildings, libraries, and community centers. With such a network in place, the savings from not having to buy equivalent services on the open market could reach hundreds of millions of dollars over the next twenty years.

MCN is more than just a physical network, however. In fact, MCN is first and foremost a purchasing cooperative whose members include: the ESE, the Information Technology Department, the Administration and Finance Secretariat, the Board of Higher Education, the UMass President's Office, University Information Services, WGBH, the Boston Public Schools, the Massachusetts Municipal Association, and the Massachusetts Corporation for Educational Telecommunications. Together, this broad coalition seeks to aggregate demand for telecommunications services and drive down costs while taking advantage of the already built MITI backbone.

While still in the initial planning phase, the basic premise of the plan is to build out dedicated connections from existing higher education nodes to 360 community "POPs" (i.e. points of presence). Schools, libraries, and municipal buildings will then be able to purchase dedicated connections into the local "POPs" at comparable to wholesale rates. Although it will take some time to connect all of the Commonwealth's communities together, once the network is established schools will be able to take advantage of a range of services previously unheard of in the K-12 universe. For example, interactive two-way video, virtual conferencing and virtual white boards, industrial strength proxy caching and other as-yet-undreamed services will be available for schools to explore.

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