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Education Case Study: Puerto Rico Department of Education

Affordable High-Speed Internet for the Puerto Rico School System

In 2004, Mobile Universe brought High-Speed internet service and networking capability to Puerto Rico's Schools with a Private Satellite Network. The system supports 1539 schools throughought the island from a single Network Operation Center (NOC) with a fully redundant hub solution, and protects all workstations with content filtering technology installed at the NOC. This solution not only satisfies all of their immediate requirements, but will meet any new networking challenges, and support any additional applications or features they need.

Challenge

The Puerto Rico Department of Education (PRDE) needed to standardize on one source of broadband access for school facilities around Puerto Rico. They needed a two-way satellite communication infrastructure to support broadband speeds for web browsing and educational resources for the children and teachers of Puerto Rico. A CIPA compliant web content filtering application needed to be put in place to filter objectionable material.

The system would need to support over 1500 sites, with up to 100,000 PC users. PRDE also required the ability to provision different speeds for the different facilities, up to 1.5 Mbps. Additionally, PRDE needed the system to be scalable for future requirements such as email, VoIP, video or any application the students and teachers need. Finally, it needed to be affordable, and they needed the facilities to be activated in a short timeframe. The vendor was required to provide a turn key, end to end solution, and to provide to the PRDE the means to monitor the network.

Solution

PRDE selected the Mobile Universe Private Network solution to provide high speed two-way IP over satellite service for it’s scalability, high performance, and application support. By installing a vsat antenna and modem at each facility, the school system of Puerto Rico can supply all their students and facilities with broadband internet access. This cost effective system allows students to use the Internet as an education tool, as well as assist in their classroom curriculum. It also provides teachers and school system administrators with a powerful communication tool to help them meet all their current goals as well as any additional requirements that could arise in the future.

This solution provides the school system of Puerto Rico with high speed access that match the user experience of traditional landline networks. The students an administrators of Puerto Rico enjoy all the benefits of the next generation broadband network, without any concerns of geographic constraints.

Mobile Universe provided the satellite-delivered broadband service to deliver affordable connectivity, and, as a result, the sky is the limit for thousands of students island-wide, who have the Internet at their fingertips just in time for the new school year.

"The right partners make all the difference. We are fortunate to have assembled an ideal combination of technological capabilities and corporate sensibilities that will effectively execute the project," said Harry G. Garcia, President of Mobile Universe. "With our commitment and resources, we will be able to have broadband connectivity in classrooms throughout the island."

Schools receive the broadband service through antennae affixed to their roofs. The signal is transmitted via a private satellite system to a central processing hub that link the students to the internet via a CIPA complaint content filter after appropriate authentication. Teachers and administrators have access to administrative systems at the Department of Education Headquarters in San Juan.

The system is capable of providing telephone service via voice over IP (VOIP) technology to each one of the 1,539 schools and PRDE dependencies. Each PRDE school or office required a VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) antenna, and a satellite router. Because the satellite router supports a standard Ethernet interface, each facility required only a standard Ethernet switch and cabling.


"The satellite-delivered Internet access from Mobile Universe is breaking down educational barriers across Puerto Rico," said Harry G. Garcia, CEO Mobile Universe. "As a result, teachers and students will have incredible access to content filter protected information without limitations, which we could only imagine until now."

"The bandwidth efficiency of the equipment, coupled with its scalability and ease of installation make it perfectly suited for this application," said Garcia.

The expertise of Mobile Universe and the full support of PRDE will enabled us to provide a cost effective turnkey broadband solution to Puerto Rico's school system.

The hub router, enterprise-class remote Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) and iDS software provide connectivity for IP based services such as data, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and internet connectivity. This VSAT network can provide data at speeds from 64 kbps to 4.2 Mbps from the remote site and up to 9 Mbps from the hub to the remotes. Each remote terminal includes a built-in router and is packaged with features such as link encryption, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) acceleration, Domain Name Server (DNS) caching and real-time traffic management Quality of Service (QoS) prioritization all in one box.

 
Content Filtering

Protecting Children online at School

Mobile Universe provided a content filtering technology at the Network Operations Center (NOC) for the Puerto Rico Department of Education project. The server software integrates into the network and works with major firewalls, routers, proxies and caching devices. This allows remote administration of filtering settings and delivers high performance global filtering by IP and IP range, with a choice of centralized or remote administration and the ability to customize block and allow lists.

The filtering software installed on a server and works with the network's router, firewall, and servers without disrupting data-flow. Since there is minimal impact on the network, implementing filtering is virtually transparent to the network users.

 

 

 

Features include Authorized Override, Delegated Administration, Custom Categories, Monitor Only & Soft Block, Filter by user or group, Schedule-based filtering, Enhanced Reporting, Central Cluster management, Block and allow file types (e.g. Mp3).

Authorized Override enables administrator to give authorized individuals the ability to override filtering settings for a specified period of time. This is ideal for organizations who periodically require unfettered access, but want to maintain some level of control.

Delegated Administration enables one network "super administrator" to delegate certain administrative tasks "downstream" to other administrators within the network. This feature lightens the administrative load for the central administrator while giving local administrators total control over defining filters, assigning filters to IP ranges and assigning filtering override privileges in a timely manner. Perfect for large education networks that require additional local control, or any network where one centralized point of administration is not practical.

 

Web-Based User Interface allows authorized non-IT managers to adjust filtering settings and define and apply new filters without needing support from IT.

Custom Categories - Create and populate an unlimited number of customized block or allow categories. This is ideal for organizations that want to fine tune filtering category choices.

Filter by user or group gives administrators the flexibility to assign filters based on multiple criteria. For example, a lab with several workstations might be filtered by IP or IP range and assigned the highest level of filtering, while that same organization might want to assign a less restrictive filter set to an individual or group.

Schedule-based filtering - Assign filtering based on a particular time of day. For instance, the most restrictive filtering can be applied from 8am to 5pm, with a more relaxed filter setting assigned during the lunch hour or after hours.

Web-based Reporting - Powerful Web-based reporting tools leverage a relational database, enabling Real-time, scheduled, distributed and delegated reporting to help you better understand Internet activity and pinpoint potential problems.

Central Cluster management - Centralized control gives administrators the ability to manage and propagate filtering settings across multiple servers.

In addition to filtering web traffic, administrators can choose to block or allow specific files types, such as MP3 or other bandwidth intensive files. Because many organizations want to better understand their Internet use without adversely impacting users, administrators can choose to monitor traffic, or to be alerted when a particular user accesses a specified category.

 

 

 
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