Charter Business Networks

Lodi Schools
The Lodi School District (Lodi, Wisconsin) had a vision. They wanted to provide their teachers and students with all of the advantages of a high-speed, fiber optic data network.

With this vision in mind, in late 1998 the district embarked on a project to build its own fiber optic wide area network (WAN). Despite thorough planning and nearly one year of construction, however, the district had made little progress. Frustration was mounting.

Among those growing tired and frustrated was Paul Anderson, the district's technology coordinator. Like other IT professionals, much of Anderson's time was consumed with the day-to-day needs of keeping the network running and meeting the demands of the school's users. Therefore, when he found himself responsible for securing building permits and resolving numerous construction-related issues associated with building a network, his time for staff became even more compromised.

Frustrations came to a head when it was determined that one of the district's buildings could not be connected to the network as originally planned. It was now clear to the school district that being responsible for building, owning and maintaining its own fiber optic network required significant resources and expertise—key ingredients that were scarce within the district.

Anxious for another alternative, Lodi Schools turned to Charter Business Networks. Charter provided the school district with a proposal for a leased high-speed, fiber optic data network that would connect all of the district's sites, as originally planned. After careful review, the district agreed that Charter's 100 Mbps WAN service was precisely the solution it had sought from the outset.

"It had been tremendously frustrating," Paul Anderson said. "After eight or nine months, we had made very little progress. We had become a bit skeptical that our network could actually be a reality."

"Charter Business Networks met with us to understand our needs and develop a solution specific to our situation. They not only made it happen, they had it operational within six weeks."

Today the district is pleased to be partnering with Charter Business Networks, and Paul Anderson is happy that he can focus on the district's internal needs. "It's nice to know that Charter is monitoring and maintaining the wide area network," said Anderson. "That's one less thing I have to worry about!"