The Knoxville School Board approved a proposal to use the E-Rate platform to equip access points, switches, and a backup power supply system schoolwide. The E-Rate platform cut the project cost from roughly $183,000 to approximately $55,000. With the approval of the platform, the school board explored using a cloud-based server named Aruba Central. Knoxville Community Schools Business Manager Craig Mobley tells KNIA/KRLS that this new E-Rate platform and server will help cut technology costs.

“The nice thing is that it will allow us in the future to reduce some of our equipment purchases, because the Aruba Central program is cloud-based therefore we won’t have to keep replacing the server in which our current wireless access point program runs and two controls. So, it should save us money in the future, without having to replace that equipment.”

Knoxville Schools hope to begin installing the new technology this summer.