Internet connection speed to increase at Chadron State

A 500 Megabit per second (Mbps) upgrade is expected to be activated by Chadron State’s Internet providers, Great Plains Communications and CenturyLink, in early 2015 and the resulting increase will more than double the college’s service speed of 200 Mbps that was provided at the beginning of the fall semester.

“We’re meeting demand for critical services and we’re trying to stay ahead of slow connection speeds for other services using our traffic management tool,” Burk said. “The Internet connection serves many purposes and so it’s vital to meet those needs.”

Bandwidth contract management is provided by the State of Nebraska Chief Information Officer’s office. The state CIO indicated to Burk the service speed improvement will go into effect once CenturyLink’s circuit is upgraded and ready for load balancing.

An increase in speed isn’t new territory for Chadron State. The campus network speed improved from 100 to 200 Mbps in January 2013. Now, less than two years later, the speed will double again. The reason for the surge, Burk said, is due to high demand for additional applications using large amounts of bandwidth on campus.

While there are several critical applications on Chadron State’s campus – Sakai, SAP (Employee Self Service), Nebraska Student Information Systems (NeSIS/MyCSC), Computer Maintenance Management Software (CMMS), the library automation system, and Hudl – that receive precedence for bandwidth, other applications such as streaming video services and game applications, have suffered from a lack of bandwidth.

Burk said the increase to 500 Mbps means individuals will see improved response time for what have been categorized as lower priority applications.

“The Information Technology department strives to provide network services that ensure students and employees are able to fulfill their academic and work responsibilities,” Burk said. “We also recognize that our resident students consider campus their home away from home and expect technology-dependent entertainment opportunities. The increase in bandwidth will allow us to bring these services into balance as well as stay ahead of bandwidth demand for the near future.”

At Chadron State, the current annual cost for Internet connectivity is approximately $70,000, paid for by student technology fee funds. Based on the fall 2014 full time equivalency of 2,259 students at Chadron State, a student is paying approximately $3.44 per month for Internet service during the fall and spring semesters. With the bandwidth increase, a student will pay approximately $7 per month.