Like so many in Bloomington-Normal, Unit 5’s school board is looking to save money its Internet service.
Unit 5’s school board voted Wednesday to switch to MetroNet. The change is expected to save Unit 5 around $146,000 over the five-year contract, said Unit 5 Business Manager Marty Hickman.
Unit 5 will leave the Central Illinois Regional Broadband Network, or CIRBN. Unit 5 has been with CIRBN since 2013 and was one of the original partners after an Illinois State University team won a $17.6 million grant during the Obama administration to bring broadband access to rural communities. Today CIRBN is a standalone organization that delivers high-speed fiber-optic service to local schools, governments, and businesses.
Unit 5 is required to bid out its Internet service, said Hickman, and MetroNet’s bid came in lower. MetroNet’s bid was around $29,000 lower per year than CIRBN’s proposed cost, Hickman said.
“It’s a pretty big savings,” said Unit 5 spokesperson Dayna Brown.
Hickman described it was a “100 percent” financial decision.
“CIRBN has been very reliable for us the entire time we’ve had them,” Hickman said.
Unit 5 checked with other school districts that use MetroNet to hear about their experiences. There is also extensive reliability and service outage language in the proposed contract, Hickman said.
The MetroNet contract does not kick in until 2019, giving the company time to run fiber and connect 26 schools and offices. Unit 5’s school board on Wednesday also approved a one-year extension with CIRBN (for 2018-2019) that will cover Internet service during that MetroNet buildout, Hickman said.
MetroNet first entered the Bloomington-Normal market in 2016.
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