Idaho State Department of Education spokeswoman Melissa McGrath said today that there are several reasons the department decided to set up its long-term WiFi contract for Idaho high schools with the vendors keeping ownership of all the equipment they install, meaning if the contract ends, they pull it out of the schools. “It’s a managed service,” she said. “We want more than just the equipment. We would like a service provided to school districts so that there is maintenance, filtering. Second is cost – when you begin to buy infrastructure, the cost is going to go up into the tens of millions.” Third, she said, if the state or the schools owned their own wireless infrastructure, “We would be responsible for updating that infrastructure. Because technology changes so quickly, it’s much more practical to put the onus on the vendor to update that technology.”

The RFP for the wireless contract requires the vendor to update the equipment on a rotating basis, at least once every five years.