Bringing Schools Up To Speed

3:11PM May 13, 2020

StratusIQ wins FOUR competitive bids for schools in Colorado to receive new fiber connections in 2020. Competitive bids include District 20 and Atlas Preparatory Academy Elementary School in Colorado Springs. By winning these bids StratusIQ (www.stratusiq.com) is now connecting these locations to a faster and more reliable fiber Internet connection. We are proud to help Colorado schools stay connected and keep education running!

Internet communication has become critical for all schools. The need to connect home-bound students and staff to online learning tools and lesson plans have led to a steady rise in demand for bandwidth and security in a school’s network. Fiber connections that provide higher speed, better reliability, and more security have become the preference for schools and school districts in Colorado. StratusIQ won the opportunity to provide fiber internet and WAN services to District 49 in 2018 and currently no services over 7 additional school entities including District 20.

This necessity for higher quality Internet services and telecommunication can be demanding on a school’s already tight budget. To help combat this, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (www.fcc.gov) offers the E-Rate program to schools and libraries across the nation. The program provides discounts for telecommunications, Internet access, and internal connections to eligible schools. Funding for the E-Rate program comes from the Universal Service Fund (fcc.gov/general/universal-service-fund), administered by the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC) (www.usac.org).

Schools and school districts release competitive bid documents to eligible providers. Much of the information requested is designed to be useful to and to be made available to potential vendors, such as StratusIQ. Through a fair and competitive bidding process, the school can choose the best provider for their needs. There are many factors that may decide a winner including price, infrastructure, experience, qualifications, locality of provider, and environmental objectives. StratusIQ is proud to have been chosen by so many schools in the Colorado Springs area.

StratusIQ has over 10 years of experience with the USAC E-Rate program. Every year we participate in the bidding process because we want to make sure that students/educators can access the internet with the fastest speeds available on a secure, independent network. If your school (Public or Private) is interested in connecting to our fiber network that is designed for 99.9% reliability we would be more than happy to see how we can help!