Costs Lead Barriers to Greater School Connectivity

(from COSN.org) Despite declines among some connectivity-related expenses, the overall recurring costs associated with technology infrastructure are public schools' number-one barrier to providing students, faculty and staff with sufficiently robust and secure wi-fi and broadband connectivity for educational needs.These and other findings, from the CoSN 2018-2019 Infrastructure Survey, reflect public school districts' progress toward the Federal Communications Commission's short-term goal for broadband connectivity of 100 Mbps per 1,000 students. Ninety-two percent of districts meet this need, and 35 percent meet the FCC long-term goal of 1 Gbps/1,000 students. Selected other findings:

• Total number of student devices is the top driver of broadband demand, followed by digital content, online assessments, streaming content and more devices per student.
• 75 percent of districts report paying less than $5/Mbps, up from 60 percent the prior year.
• Among cybersecurity threats, the top concern is breach detection.

Much more in the report, available from CoSN.

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