Marion School District to Deliver Enhanced Digital Education With Comcast Business Multi-Gigabit Ethernet Services

More than 3,900 students to benefit from a 10-Gig Comcast Business connection

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – May 25, 2017 – Comcast Business announced today that Marion School District and its facilities across Marion and West Memphis in Crittenden County, Arkansas, are using Comcast Business Ethernet services to deliver enhanced digital education programs for students.

“From remote learning and online assessments to growing Wi-Fi needs, technology is changing the way we teach our students and support our administrators,” said Timothy L. Taylor, Technology Coordinator, Marion School District. “Our services with Comcast Business will allow us to improve our growing technology initiatives and the way we educate our students.”

The Marion School District provides early childhood, elementary and secondary education for more than 3,900 students and will leverage a 10 gigabit-per-second (Gbps) connection to enhance connectivity between the facilities and support future growth of the school district’s educational video services. The 10 Gbps connection through Comcast Business will also help Marion School District work towards meeting the broadband infrastructure goals outlined by the State Education Technology Directors Association (SETDA) which aims to improve education through technology policy and practice.

“These kids are our future and being able to offer the latest educational services requires a fast, reliable and secure connection,” said Michelle Pluskota, Comcast Vice President of Business Services. “Schools like Marion across the country face the same challenges of managing growing student populations, leveraging video and distance learning, offering Wi-Fi, and offering parent portals to communicate with families. Comcast Business has the network and services to support the evolving needs of America’s educational institutions and businesses large and small.”

In 2016, Comcast Business completed a multi-million dollar fiber network installation across greater Memphis, capable of delivering up to 10 Gbps speeds to local businesses. This investment allowed for Comcast Business to expand the network to West Memphis and Crittenden Country, Arkansas.

Comcast Business serves schools, businesses, hospitals, and other organizations that require large amounts of bandwidth, are looking to link multiple locations, or that plan to connect their offices to a third-party data center. Services offered include:

• Ethernet Private Line: point-to-point connectivity between two customer sites for bandwidth-intensive applications
• Ethernet Virtual Private Line: point-to-multipoint connection to enable customers to tailor bandwidth, performance characteristics, and cost
• Ethernet Network Service: multipoint-to-multipoint connectivity to connect organizations with high-bandwidth requirements and multiple locations across Comcast’s network
• Ethernet Dedicated Internet: continuous, high-bandwidth connectivity between customers’ LANs and the public Internet

Nationally, Comcast Business’s Ethernet services are delivered over an advanced network that spans more than 149,000 miles and features a 100 Gbps backbone and expanded local footprint through Ethernet over HFC. Bandwidth is available up to 10 Gbps and can be scaled in increments and offered in three different classes of service, backed by strict service level agreements and monitored 24x7x365 from Comcast’s dedicated Network Operations Centers.

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