Comcast Business Takes Ethernet To School

Comcast Business today announced that Springfield Public Schools in Union County, N.J., has selected the unit’s Ethernet service to support a tech learning environment for more than 2,400 students across the district’s five schools.

In addition to providing the Internet bandwidth (from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps) needed by the thousands of laptops and other mobile devices that access the school district’s network, Comcast Business will also provide a connection between Springfield Public Schools and its primary data center for the secure transfer of all critical administrative and educational data.                            

Springfield Public Schools is a five-school district that includes one early childhood learning center, two elementary schools, a middle school and one high school. The district offers a “1:1 learning environment” whereby it provides laptops for students in grades 6-12 as well as for all faculty and administrators. The Pre K-5 classrooms have a minimum of four laptops and tablets per classroom.

“After careful assessment of our bandwidth options, we made the decision to partner with Comcast Business. The experience has been seamless and has allowed us to focus on providing our students with the best education possible instead of worrying about how we will meet our bandwidth demands,” said Michael A. Davino, superintendent at Springfield Public Schools, in a statement.

Ethernet services are one of Comcast's growth engines. Overall, Comcast business service revenues grew to $876 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, up from $699 million in the year-ago quarter, and $3.24 billion for all of 2013, compared to $2.56 billion in 2012. About 20% of revenues in the category come from mid-sized businesses served by the MSO's Metro Ethernet platform.