After a subsea fiber internet cable broke two weeks ago, standardized tests at Nome Public Schools have been put on hold. The district’s primary provider, SES, relied on the fiber network for a stable connection.
While the district has a backup system in OneWeb, a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite provider, limited bandwidth has made it difficult to maintain normal school functions. Nome Public Schools’ Superintendent, Jamie Burgess, said the district is having to make tough choices on what gets bandwidth.
“We're having to prioritize the systems that just keep school functioning. We have students that receive speech therapy, and that's remotely done, so we have to prioritize them,” Burgess said.
Burgess said the most pressing concern is the delay of mid-year Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) testing, which was scheduled to begin in mid-January. The testing requires significant bandwidth, as nearly 700 students complete multiple assessments in reading, math, and science.
“Our big challenge right now is really trying to figure out what are we going to do with the bandwidth that we have in the time that we have. Are we going to do MAP testing?” Burgess said. “We're gonna get it fixed eventually, but it's like, in the meantime, what are we going to do?”
The fix, until the fiber line can be repaired in the late summer, is adding capacity to the district’s OneWeb network. Burgess said the district has one terminal on the roof of Nome Elementary that beams internet wirelessly to Nome-Beltz. After the break, all of the district’s traffic passed through this one terminal, which proved to not be capable of the load.
Burgess said the district is working with OneWeb to install two additional terminals on Nome-Beltz and the district office at no additional cost.
“They're contracted to provide us with a certain amount of bandwidth. They're the ones that should have some type of redundancy built in,” Burgess said. “They can't just throw up their hands and say, ‘Oh well, sorry’.”
Burgess credited IT Director Jim Shreve with working tirelessly on a solution. The upgrades are expected to be complete by mid-February.
