Belpre BOE discusses broadband
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BELPRE -- Holding the last meeting of the calendar year, the Belpre City Schools Board of Education received a broadband internet update from district Technology Coordinator Matt Morris on Monday evening at the Stone Administration Building/Early Learning Center.
During his presentation, Morris announced that Belpre City Schools will be using Motorola NITRO, a wireless broadband network from Motorola Solutions, and it will allow the district to extend the school's network beyond its traditional methods to those unable to provide internet service or who live in unreliable service areas.
The coverage area is roughly a square mile with about 260 degrees of coverage around Ralph Holder Stadium. It will also allow students' devices to exist "natively" on the school's network as they would in person.
NITRO is Motorola's name for Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). The service was created by the Federal Communications Commission to encourage users to expand broadband and utilizes LTE technology used by the cell phone industry. NITRO's devices at Belpre High School include redundant routers, ethernet switches, an edge gateway server, a precision time protocol (PTP) server, CBRS's and antennas.
Receiving $150,000 from the federal CARES Act, Belpre City Schools looked at buying hotspots through a cell phone provider to supply internet but Morris said the internet wasn't reliable because anybody in the household could use it.
"Chances are the family is going to have anything and everything to that device and try to get free internet off of us, which we're not in the business to do. We're not in the business to provide internet to the entire family. We're here to provide to the students so they can do their assignments," Morris said.
Fifty students have received devices that consist of a WiFi router and Customer-premises equipment (CPE), which connects them to the network. The devices are tied to the school's network and only the schools' devices can connect wirelessly to the router.
Receiving equipment the week of Thanksgiving and the next Monday and Tuesday, Morris said that despite dealing with the weather, problems with a manufacturing defect on a fiber optic cable, and other minor problems, the installation process went smoothly.
"We did hit a few snags with the installation. We had issues with the weather on Monday and Tuesday with the rain and snow, it made it hard for the guys.
"We also ran into a miscommunication with a contractor regarding responsibilities and expectations, but we worked with Motorola and ITSavvy to come up with a solution and ensure we were able to stay on time and on track," Morris said. "The biggest issue we ran into was our second pole had issues with the fiber optic cable having a manufacturing defect. The tower contractor ordered a new cable, but it was the incorrect one. As a result, the second tower was switched to CAT6 Ethernet cable from fiber optic. Once that was done, we still had an issue that we found out was related to the unit looking for one connection and actually having another," he said.
The partnership will also include a two-year warranty.
During his update, Superintendent Jeff Greenley gave a brief report that Ohio's COVID cases across the state went down on Monday, but did see an increase in Belpre, coming in with 78 positive cases, compared to 65 late last week. He is still pleased to see a downward trend in the state and hopes that trend continues as the new semester starts in January.
"Very happy to have a successful semester of school, I don't know any of us thought that we would get as far as we did this year. You all know as well as I, all the work that made it happen, and I could not be happier with the staff and faculty members," Greenley said.
Belpre City Schools received a $50,000 donation from the Washington County Commissioners. According to Treasurer Lance Erlwein, the commission donated the money after being unable to spend all of its COVID funding. Erlwein said the funds will be used for the Blue Sky Virtual program, an online learning and virtual event service.
A new president of the board was voted as well, as board member Mike Miller was chosen to be the 2021 president in a unanimous decision, replacing current president Leonard Wiggins, who will stay as a board member.