New Jersey Connects Schools With Lightpath

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New Jersey’s Department of Education’s Digital Readiness for Learning and Assessment Project (DRLAP) has expanded broadband coverage to more than 65 schools through a contract awarded to Lightpath, a division of Cablevision. DRLAP offers a cooperative purchasing agreement option for member schools. The purchasing cooperative, which is administered by the Middlesex Regional Educational Services Commission (MRESC) has been active for about one year.

Lightpath is one of just seven service providers selected by the cooperative to sell broadband services to K-12 schools in New Jersey and has connected more than 40 percent of the schools participating in the program, according to the New Jersey Department of Education.

Lightpath has also been recommended by the collective as a preferred partner for hosted phone service.

As part of its work with the collective, the company is building a 100% fiber network for schools. By purchasing services collectively, the schools can access the broadband network at a lower cost.

According to the DRLAP website, the goal of the collective is to offer basic Internet Service (up to 100 Mbps) and high speed (over 100 Mbps). The collective will also enable the creation of a statewide Wide Area Network (WAN) through regional consortia for internet and other services.