Plan would link schools in Arkadelphia to Internet
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Arkadelphia Public Schools will be among the first to benefit from
cable TV executives' plans to offer elementary and secondary
schools in the United States free, high-speed equipment to link to
the Internet.
[Image] Sixteen cable companies say they will provide 3,000
schools in roughly 64 communities with the Internet connections.
It is part of a new industrywide program that aims to hook up all
elementary and secondary schools in the United States.
[Image] But two of the nation's largest cable companies had
already promised to provide free Internet access to the schools in
their territories. And local franchise authorities say it is not
unusual for them to require cable companies to provide such free
services to schools as a condition of franchise renewal.
[Image] The goal is to wire as many of the nation's 95,000 private
and public elementary and secondary schools as possible, National
Cable Television Association president Decker Anstrom said in an
interview.
[Image] "But what happens after year one? I don't know," he said.
"A lot depends commercially on how successful service will be."
[Image] In Arkansas, TCA Cable TV pledged free connections to
schools in Arkadelphia, according to the cable industry.
[Image] Cable systems are competing with telephone services and
other outlets for access to computer networks like the Internet.
[Image] "The impact of the 1996 telecommunications bill," which
was designed to make services more competitive, "is that everybody
is going to be competing with everybody and everything in this
business," said Glenn Hatmaker, spokesman for the Cable Television
Association.
[Image] The school hook-up is one way to show the advantages of
cable systems, which have a higher capacity for rapid transmission
of data, Hatmaker said. Also, many schools are already prepared
for cable service because of educational television cable hookups.
But the competition is too wide open for the schools to give cable
companies a clear advantage in the computer access race, he said.
[Image] Arkadelphia is one of the school systems with schoolwide
cable connections, said Alan Wardlaw, plant manager for TCA Cable
TV in Arkadelphia.
[Image] "Basically, they have direct Internet access at Henderson
State University, and wanted to get it into Arkadelphia Public
Schools," Wardlaw said. Educators at Henderson and Arkadelphia
schools asked his company for his assistance, and Wardlaw agreed,
he said.
[Image] "This is an experiment to see if it will work," Wardlaw
said. If successful, his company could offer Internet links to
customers.
[Image] Arkadelphia schools already have Internet access to more
than 100 computers within the district, assistant superintendent
Herman Thomas said, but this service will provide high-speed
access free.
[Image] Under the new program, participating companies will
install a cable modem into at least one site in a school. The
cable modem is a new, still developing device that allows people
to connect their computers to the Internet and other computer
networks via coaxial cable at speeds considerably faster than
standard a modem over existing telephone lines.
[Image] Some cable companies, expanding beyond their core
business, want to offer high-speed data links to their cable
customers. Others are experimenting with the cable modems. But
there are technical and financial hurdles that still must be
resolved and analysts have mixed reviews about the business'
prospects.
[Image] Cable giants Tele-Communications Inc., Time Warner Inc.
and Continental Cablevision are among the companies experimenting
with the technology and are among those that plan to provide cable
modems to schools in their service areas.
[Image] But Time Warner and Continental, under "social contracts"
with the Federal Communications Commission, already made pledges
to provide free high-speed Internet access to schools in their
regions, the FCC said. The contracts allowed the companies to
negotiate a rate they could charge customers for regulated cable
services in return for agreeing to do certain things for the
community.
[Image] Other industries, such as telephone companies, also are
offering Internet connections to schools.
[Image] AT&T Corp., for example, pledged last October to spend
$150 million over five years to help connect schools to the
network.
[Image] The cable industry's program builds upon an existing one
called Cable in the Classroom. Under that voluntary program, more
than 8,400 cable companies and 32 cable networks have invested
more than $420 million to wire and connect 74,000 schools to cable
TV for free.
[Image] Information for this article was contributed by The
Associated Press and Democrat-Gazette business writer Doug
Thompson.
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This article was published on Wednesday, July 10, 1996
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Copyright 1996, Little Rock Newspapers, Inc. All rights reserved.
This document cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of
Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.
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