The District seeks options for replacing and extending their Wide Area Network. The District currently has 5Gbps connections between each of their buildings except for the District Office. Over the course of the past year the District rebuilt Glacier Gateway Elementary School and is in the process of selling the building at the previous location. In the previous year, the District rerouted the WAN connection from the old Glacier Elementary School to the new location. During this time, it was discovered that the only connection to the District Office came from the old building. Thus, the District is also seeking a connection from the District hub to the District Office. It is important to the District that any connection be live as soon as feasible, but by July 1, 2023 at the latest.
The current hub for the District’s WAN is:
Columbia Falls High School
610 13th Street West
Columbia Falls, MT 59912
The hub at the high school currently connects to three other sites:
Columbia Falls Junior High School
1805 Talbot Road
Columbia Falls, MT 59912
Glacier Gateway Elementary School
440 4th Avenue, W
Columbia Falls, MT 59912
Ruder Elementary School
1500 12th Ave. W
Columbia Falls, MT 59912
Columbia Falls School District NCCE.2023.108 7
In addition, the District is seeking to add:
Columbia Falls District Office
501 6th Avenue W
Columbia Falls, MT 59912
Note that the District is not proscribing a particular network design but prefers a design that provides resiliency to the network.
All proposed solutions need to account for the cost to bring the connection directly to the MDF. The District would prefer that the route from pole to building is underground in conduit but would accept an arial solution, depending on design.
The District requires fiber connections between building and will accept proposals for any of the following:
1. Lit Fiber WAN service
2. Dark Fiber WAN service, including hardware
3. A self-provisioned WAN build, including hardware
4. Maintenance and Operations of Self-Provisioned Network, if selected.
Additional specifications are available in Section 7, below.
The District prefers a term of three (3) years with an option to renew for two (2) addition like terms.
6 TECHNICAL