Mountain Connect 2015Rural Broadband Challenges

Jim English – Colorado Mountain College Kate Robinson – Western State Colorado UniversityMatthew McGlamery – Fort Lewis College

Colorado Mountain College

CMC Statistics

• Founded 1967• 9 Counties• 11 locations• 20,000 unduplicated students• 4500 FTE• 85% of the students are from Colorado• 18% minority population• 12 to 1 – College-wide student / faculty ratio• Average part-time student = 38 years of age• Average full-time student = 24 years of age

AspenBuena Vista BreckenridgeCarbondale

Dillon Edwards

GlenwoodLeadville *

RifleSpring Valley *

Steamboat Springs *

* Residential Campus

Residential Hall Capacity

Leadville – 95Spring Valley – 216Steamboat – 224

Broadband Connectivity

• 100 Meg MOE connection – FRGP• 300 Meg connection CenturyLink

100 Meg FRGP1 month % utilization

100 Meg FRGP1 week % utilization

300 Meg CenturyLink1 month % utilization

300 Meg CenturyLink1 week % utilization

Bandwidth / Broadband Future Growth

Two issues: • Redundant affordable bandwidth to all locations• Additional affordable Broadband capacity

Mountain Connect 2015

Western State Colorado University

• Located in Gunnison on the western slope of Colorado• 7700 feet elevation• ~ 2400 students• ~ 430 Staff/Faculty• 473 rooms/apartments on campus• 300 APs• 470 Mbps bandwidth• Average 1800 devices on wireless

Current Internet Connectivity

• We have one 500 Mbps MoE circuit from CenturyLink• Western provides bandwidth to the City and County of Gunnison

Bandwidth Growth

Increased # of devices

Challenges

• CenturyLink owns the only fiber into Gunnison coming from Montrose• If we purchased bandwidth from someone other than CenturyLink, it

would still be running over the same fiber• No redundancy• Low residency graduate programs• Cloud applications• Meeting expectations of students coming from urban areas

Proposed Solutions

• RFP for bandwidth 1 year in advance of contract expiration to see if someone will build into Gunnison

• FRGP as an option to reduce amount of bandwidth needed

MOUNTAIN CONNECT 2015BROADBAND CHALLENGES FOR

RURAL COLLEGES & UNIVERISITES

Fort Lewis College – Durango Colorado

Fort Lewis College – Durango Colorado

Fort Lewis College

Public Liberal Arts 3751 Undergraduate

25 Graduate 181 Faculty 309 Staff

1700 Beds 900 Mbs Internet 321 Access Points

G through ACExpanding

Internet Connectivity

300 Mbs – Front Range Giga Pop, Denver Colorado MoE circuit from Centurylink Commodity Internet Internet 2

300 Mbs – Brainstorm Internet – Durango 1Gb Private Fiber

300 Mbs – Cogent Communications – Albuequrque 1Gb Transport via FastTrack Communications

Internet Bandwidth Growth 1 day average

Device Growth 1st week of Fall 2014 Semester

Challenges

Residential Bandwidth Growth Home Experience Expectations

Cloud Applications Application growth is all in the cloud

Internet of Things Network Reliability / Availability

Critical to: Instruction Commerce Entertainment

Mountain Connect 2015Rural Broadband Challenges

Jim English – Colorado Mountain College Kate Robinson – Western State Colorado UniversityMatthew McGlamery – Fort Lewis College