Be Your Own ISP
When one school district was unable to get good Internet connectivity, they started up their own ISP (Internet Service Provider).
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The Mendocino Community Network (MCN) is a business owned and operated by the Mendocino Unified School District. Mendocino is a small historic town of Victorian style buildings on the coast of California about 150 miles north of San Francisco. The MCN mission is to provide high-quality, personal Internet services to the school district, their "off-campus" customers, and the communities they serve.
MCN came about through an original grant from NASA for teachers to develop curriculum that utilized the Internet. When the grant was over the district opened up subscription access to the community. Mendocino Community Network provides Internet service to all the schools, provides free dial-up services to teachers and provides paid subscription dial-up, ISDN, cable or wireless service to customers throughout California.
At last check, MCN had over 5000 customers. It employs 18 local people, provides internships for many high school students and provides free or deeply reduced Internet services to the schools, teachers and nonprofit community groups.
The Mendocino Middle School Cyber Fair entry is an example of the support the Mendocino Community Network has given to the schools, providing services that would otherwise not be available.
Guide To Building Your Own ISP talks about many of the issues you face in starting up your own ISP.
See Also
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While most districts now have easy access to the Internet, the Mendocino Community Network shows that small communities can come together to create a win-win situation for both the school district and the community.
Most tech savvy school districts already have much of the expertise needed to start an ISP.
