Glenburn offers low-cost Net access

GLENBURN – How do you bring computer technology and Internet service to a small rural town in Maine when the costs can wreak havoc with the pocketbook?

Glenburn has come up with a program that not only keeps costs down for residents, but provides service to anyone who wants it, basically free.

“When we decided we needed to update our computer system [for the town], we needed some technical assistance, and we had heard about Hermon [High School] and that they had a good system,” said Town Manager Carl Betterley. “We liked the idea so much we worked with their school system. As a part of that process they put in a server to allow students from home to just dial up and have access to that server. It was such a success and worked so well, we offered it to the residents.”

The cost of the program, which began last year, comes from property taxes.

“We’re in our first year of starting this system,” Betterley said. “I believe we have 200 families signed up. We pay for it through taxes, and it’s done in increments. You purchase access through the phone system, and there is no cost to you and no monthly cost. It’s very cost-effective for us to provide this service.”

The population of Glenburn is approximately 4,000, and Betterley estimates that more than half are connected to Glenburn.net.

Glenburn.net provides one free dial-up Internet service account and five free e-mail accounts per family. Any Glenburn resident may sign up for the service at the town office.

“The town of Hermon does that same thing,” said Shane Stafford, director of information service for Glenburn and its school. “They have an infrastructure of hardware and computer lines to provide access to their residents. What we did was work with them to extend that access to our residents. Essentially, what happens is they support the hardware, and we support service and support for our residents.”

The computer, which supports the dial-up, is hosted at the Hermon location. “It’s kind of like we’re piggybacked on their service,” said Stafford.

Free access is just one part of the program. Because the costs of individual computers can run in the hundreds or thousands of dollars, the communities also came up with a way to keep costs low and provide high-speed computers for students.

“What they’re doing in Glenburn is really special,” said Jeff Wheeler, director of information service for Hermon.net. “They’re using equipment that most people would throw away, and using public domain software so every child has an excellent computer experience. What they’re doing in Glenburn, and what we have been doing in Hermon for some time, is create airboxes.”

The airboxes are basically stripped-out older computers that are connected directly to a server.

“We would take a computer that has no hard drive, no floppy drive and CD-ROM drive with a Pentium processor and 30 megs of RAM you can’t buy anymore, and I would hook it up to the Linux system and your computer would work faster than before,” Wheeler said. “It kills obsolescence. There is no need for new computers.”

Wheeler said most school districts purchase new computers that soon become outdated every few years for staff, teachers and students.

“You have this continuous upgrade spiral,” he said. “They [school districts] can’t work with that, because they don’t have the budget for it. This is rural Maine, where people don’t have money and we’re having an economic downfall.”

The K-12 Linux Terminal Service Project system eliminates the need to update computers and purchase new software, he said. By creating a Linux system to connect the school and town’s computers, any software that is added to the system is available to everybody connected to the system.

“All of the terminals immediately get the results,” said Wheeler. “It’s the coolest thing we ever stumbled into. People throw away the pieces of hardware that we use for high-speed terminals. You have a never-ending opportunity flow of junk.”

The Glenburn school district received six pallets of state of Maine surplus computers on April 8, which will be stripped and used in the Linux system. Hammond Lumber helped to unload the pallets.

“Basically what we’re doing is creating a lot of terminals in the classrooms that are connected to a main server in our network room,” said Stafford. “So in essence what these terminals are doing is connecting key strokes and video to the server so the server does the thinking and processing. For a $2,000 server, we can support about 50 clients in the classroom. This was designed with schools in mind.”

The “new” computers will be placed in the school’s technology clusters and two or three will be placed in each classroom in kindergarten through 6th-grade.

Wheeler said expanding the service to residents is in the foreseeable future.

“We’re looking at extending this system as an appliance to the student’s home, and it’s a natural progression to provide it to residents,” he said. “I think that’s an expected plan on the horizon.”

Other rural communities may want to take a look at the Hermon and Glenburn systems before investing more money in upgrading their computer systems, Wheeler said.

“If you’re from any rural community in Maine you can do this,” he said. “Glenburn is living proof of another community putting this together. Glenburn has made more progress than we did in four years, and we’ve been providing free and limited Internet access for eight years.”