Education

PenTeleData and Kutztown
Area School District

The Kutztown Area School District has its roots in the 18th Century when Germans first settled in the area. Today, the Kutztown Area School District is now made up of 100 square miles of beautiful, scenic Pennsylvania landscape located in the northeastern part of Berks County.

The Kutztown Area School District strives "to provide an interactive educational environment which encourages students to acquire the skills, knowledge, and attitudes, necessary to become responsible members of society," and that mission statement is posted prominently on the district's web page.

Implementing new technologies is one way of achieving that goal, and the KASD has grown significantly through adopting new technologies over the years. Six years ago, the school district only had one computer connected to the Internet via a dial-up connection. Today, each classroom and library has at least one computer connected to the Internet, and the high school is implementing a one-to-one laptop computer program to give each student a brand-new Apple iBook laptop computer for use during the school year.

"Kutztown High School has just begun a very innovative project in regards to its one-to-one implementation. Our dependency on the PenTeleData network is at its peak. We depend on reliable Internet access and content filtering to make this implementation a success," says Mark Erb, Technology Director for the school district.

The Kutztown school district is on the cutting edge of today's technology with the implementation of the one-to-one program, but how did they get there?

At the recommendation of other Berks County technology coordinators, KASD chose PenTeleData to provide its Internet services. "PenTeleData was a local company with a good reputation and also had services in our area," says Erb. He also noted that their previous Internet Service Provider did not have adequate support. "Often times we found ourselves without service and no one to turn to," says Mark. Soon enough, they turned to PenTeleData.

Currently, the Kutztown Area School District has PenTeleData EtherPoint, broadband cable Internet, and Padlock content filtering services. These services are primarily used for Internet access and Padlock provides content filtering for that Internet access.

Both EtherPoint and cable modem services provide Internet access, and EtherPoint can provide data transport between multiple locations. PenTeleData's EtherPoint solution is a flexible Internet access and data transport option that allows for increases in bandwidth without costly equipment changes, so if Kutztown finds that they need more bandwidth to accommodate students with their new Apple iBook laptops in the classrooms, such an upgrade is accomplished literally in a matter of minutes. Broadband cable modem services provide affordable high-speed Internet access with speeds up to 6 Mbps through existing cable television lines via PenTeleData's vast fiber optic network.

PADLOCK® content filtering from PenTeleData can be used for as few as one computer to an entire network of computers. Padlock provides a simple method for blocking Internet access to websites with questionable or inappropriate content, giving the Kutztown Area School District complete control over the content accessible from its network.

"As with many other businesses, we have come to depend on the Internet. We use the Internet throughout the Kutztown Area School District not only for academic purposes, but for crucial e-mail communication. Our business office has come to rely on the Internet in many ways in order to fulfill their role in the district," explains Erb. Approximately 1900 students, 150 faculty, and the school district office personnel utilize the services provided by PenTeleData.

At KASD's disposal is PenTeleData's Network Control Center (NCC)-the support center for all commercial and educational accounts. The NCC is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year to monitor the health of the PenTeleData network as well as customer networks and responds to any and all issues that arise.

Mark notes that PenTeleData's Network Control Center is particularly helpful when he runs into problems. "I am treated with respect and someone always follows up with a call." PenTeleData prides itself on responsiveness and personal attention to detail.

With so much technology being implemented in the present, what are the school district's technology goals for the future?

"To continue to implement technology into our curriculum and provide students with the technology tools they need to be successful in today's society."

PenTeleData and the Kutztown Area School District are partners in education, building a stronger community which we all call home.

Dear valued customers,

Happy New Year! And welcome to the first quarter of 2005. All of us here at PenTeleData hope you had a wonderful and safe holiday season. To start off the New Year, we have some exciting news and information for everyone, so read on to find out what's in store for this issue of the PTD Chat.

In this issue, we feature our partner in education, the Kutztown Area School District, and the story of their technological success. Learn how Kutztown went from having a single computer with a dial-up Internet connection to having an Internet ready and/or connected computer in every classroom and library.

We also give you an exciting glimpse at our forthcoming ProLog Unleashed wireless Internet access hotspots - coming soon to the PenTeleData footprint. Not only is Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) on the way, but PenTeleData is also researching several other new options including a hassle-free personal firewall for cable modem customers and Voice over IP

(VoIP) services that would allow you to use your broadband (cable or DSL) Internet connection to make and receive telephone calls.

Finally, dial-up users should be sure to check out the V.92 update to see if we have upgraded your area to the V.92 modem standard. V.92 adds some excellent features to your dial-up Internet connection including modem-on-hold, which allows you to place your Internet connection on hold to make or receive telephone calls.

Our tenth anniversary has finally come to an end, and we would like to thank you, our valued customers, for your continued support over these past ten years. Once again, all of us here at PenTeleData would like to wish you a warm, safe and happy new year. We'll chat again when the temperatures rise and the snow begins to melt. See you in the spring!

Sincerely,
John H. Williams
PenTeleData - General Manager

ProLog Unleashed: Are you ready for it ?

PenTeleData is still working hard to upgrade all of our dial-up PoPs to the V.92 modem standard. V.92 allows for faster connection times (Quick Connect), Modem-on-Hold (MoH), and faster upload speeds (PCM Upstream).

V.92's PCM Upstream feature improves upload speeds to a maximum of 48 Kbps, which can make sending information such as digital images, files, and other items over the Internet quicker.

Quick Connect can help speed up the time it takes for your dial-up modem to establish a connection to PenTeleData's servers and the Internet. Quick Connect works by helping

your modem to remember the 'handshake' from the last time it dialed in. Typically, you will hear 25-27 seconds of noises when your modem connects, but Quick Connect can cut this amount of time in half.

Modem-on-Hold is perhaps the most exciting feature of V.92 - it allows you to make and receive telephone calls while connected to the Internet. Essentially, it alerts you to incoming calls and allows you to place your Internet connection on hold while you take the call. When your call is finished, you hang up your telephone and press a button to resume your Internet session.

The current list of areas with V.92 support follows:

Customer Contest - January 2005

Questions:

PenTeleData's Past,Present,and Future

At the dawn of the information age in 1994, PenTeleData began with only six employees operating out of a small facility. Back then, PenTeleData offered dial-up Internet services in the Palmerton and Lehighton areas of Pennsylvania.

At the time, the Internet was still very new, and most people were barely familiar with technologies like e-mail and bulletin boards. Instant Messaging and other real-time communications software had yet to be conceived. The World Wide Web (WWW) was in its infancy.

During this time, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) began cropping up all over the country offering dial-up access to residential and business customers. Some of the first and most popular service providers included Prodigy and America Online, but originally did not provide access to the World Wide Web. Only later, as the WWW grew in popularity, did they begin to offer access to the web.

PenTeleData initially offered toll-free dial-up Internet access-ProLog Internet Service-to residential and commercial customers along with high-speed dedicated connections to larger organizations. Unlike many other ISPs, PenTeleData's founders saw what the future might hold for this so-called "information superhighway," so they strategically planned for that future.

Part of that plan was the partnership with local cable television and telephone companies to eventually provide high-speed Internet access to everyone. Today, those partnerships allow PenTeleData to offer the most reliable, high-speed cable and DSL broadband Internet services available. In 1995, PenTeleData became the first data and Internet service provider in the country to offer broadband cable Internet service, ProLog Express, to its partner’s customers.

Today, we are able to offer even more products and services for both business and residential customers-products ranging from Broadband and dedicated high-speed Internet access with speeds charting at 622 Mbps to network security audits, network design services, Integration services, web hosting & creation and much more. PenTeleData has grown exponentially from its early days in 1994.

Because we have not forgotten why our company has grown so vastly since then, PenTeleData would like to extend our deepest appreciation to our customers for a decade of continued business and support. We owe our incredible success not only to our founders for their foresight, but to our customers as well-for supporting us over the past ten years.

PenTeleData would also like to extend thanks to our cable and telephone company partners for a decade of excellent cooperation and teamwork. Our experienced partners each with over 50 years of reliable local service to the community are: Service Electric Cable TV and Communications, Service Electric Company, Service Electric Cablevision, CATV Service, Inc., Ironton Telephone and Blue Ridge Communications.

Now that PenTeleData's tenth anniversary has come completely to a close-we would like to thank you, our valued customers, one last time as the New Year begins. PenTeleData looks forward to a bright and prosperous future for us all.