Telecommunications Providers' Issues

Telecommunication Providers Perspective
John Badal
January 16, 1996

Telecommunications providers, perhaps more so than many other industries, have a direct interest in assisting this nation's public schools gain access to the information superhighway. Not only do these providers share the business communityi's concern for quality education and a work-ready student body, but they are engaged in the very business of providing such access to information databases and often feel frustrated that such access is most slowly planned for the customers that need information the most.

A number of telecommunications providers have incorporated in their business as well as community assistance plans specific services and special programs to deliver information and telecommunications services to K- 1 2 schools. AT&T, MCI, and US West offer special service programs for schools, including free start-up offers, training for teachers, and ongoing discounts on certain services. Information technology companies also have designed specific products and packaged services for K-12 schools and some have partnered with selected public schools in Arizona to showcase their wares. AT&T, Motorola, and Intel are a few of the number of companies that have established dedicated product management divisions for K- 1 2 information technology needs. The introduction of many of these programs in our schools has been slow, particularly frustrating for some schools, or even the providers themselves, where a school may easily have need of a given service, the service is offered in the short term for free, but in the long term requires an expenditure that the school is not prepared to incur.

Because of the state school funding structure and budgeting practices in place in Arizona, sales of information technology to K- 12 schools do not come about as predictably or as quickly as the delivery of such technologies to other sectors. There exists a significant disparity in funding rural, inner city, and suburban schools, which is to be addressed by the next general session of the legislature. Also, state, and local district budgets that must be approved in a unique public sector manner are part of the procurement process (where politics often intervene) and challenge long term planning. Information technology is often slow to arrive in the halls of government as well, which may influence the level of awareness of, or appreciation for information technologies applied to the administration of government, of schools, and to classroom rearming environments.

While one obstacle to outfitting our schools with appropriate technologies may be a lack of awareness of their value to education, another may be some preconceived notions about the cost of technology. Providing every student a computer or every teacher a cellular phone is not part of anyone's equation. Proper provisioning of information technologies to schools and libraries does not have to be inordinately expensive if planned adequately. And, the comprehensive planning of technology deployment is the one element that seems to be lacking at the state and, in many cases, at the local level. Too often, school boards or the legislature are asked to fund technology programs that are piecemeal responses to the schools' needs. Because the needs are great and often immediate, proposals addressing one aspect of technology requirements are often proposed. To compound the piecemeal nature of technology deployment in schools today, training costs are too often reduced or deleted in equipment requests, resulting in cases where purchased technology goes unused or poorly used. Many anecdotes can be told of equipment purchased by schools or government that sits in some boiler room unused or that is made obsolete by the purchase of an incompatible service or products soon thereafter.

As mentioned above, what is lacking in the acquisition of information and telecommunications technologies for our schools is a comprehensive utilization and deployment plan that must proceed any further acquisition. It is critical that any plan to introduce new technologies to schools be accompanied by an adequate maintenance and training program that includes the ongoing use of services and equipment as well as the transition to new technologies. The telecommunications sector recognizes the need for a statewide plan, preferable to the spotty procurement and ineffective use of our technologies and would support the development of such a plan as soon as possible.

Quite simply, telecommunications and information technology providers have services that schools need, are in the business to sell those products, and can do more for our schools, our teachers, our students by developing systems to conform to a coherent state program than by responding to inefficient piecemeal requests of individual schools or districts.

Such plan will necessarily need to address:

1. the basic infrastructure to be supplied by telecommunications network operators, which must be uniformly deployed throughout the state in order to enable any school to have available the same capacity to receive information and transmit messages along the system as any other;

2. the internal wiring of schools and libraries, scheduled in concert with equipment and services acquisitions and strategically deployed to meet the needs of school libraries, administrative offices, and computer classes; and, like the external infrastructure, be capable to satisfy future growth requirements;

3. the acquisition of telecommunications and information services that meet the basic needs of the school administration, teacher communication with parents, libraries, and of the students in a learning environment;

4. the acquisition of equipment to meet the needs to convey the above services to all of the above.

In the development of a statewide strategic plan, it will be necessary to involve the active participation, even the commitment, of the full range of service and product providers as a way to best exploit the resources of all to the schools' benefit. Each of the elements of the plan, as described above, is a necessary part of the whole. Therefore, every type of telecommunications and information technology provider must be called to participate with the schools, the governor, and the state legislature in order to place Arizona's children in an advantageous competitive position.

John Badal, Government Relations
AT&T
2800 North Central Avenue, Suite 828
Phoenix, AZ 85004
602-285-5722
jbadal@lgamgw.attmail