Lisbon School Bus gets Connected to the Internet

By Patrick Hogan

Tools

By Becky Ogann

Story Created: Sep 2, 2010 at 1:20 PM CST

Story Updated: Sep 2, 2010 at 1:20 PM CST

LISBON, Iowa — In addition to restaurants, airports, libraries and churches, school buses now can be added to the list of places serving up wireless Internet thanks to Lisbon schools.

The school district recently added Wifi service to one of its regular yellow school buses for student use, according to Superintendent Brad Laures. The district is in the first year of a 1:1 computer initiative, so all sixth through 12th graders have laptops they can use on the network.

“We thought with our 1:1 initiative, that would be a good fit so our kids can stay connected and do school work,” Laures said.

The Wifi network originally was installed so student athletes could work on homework assignments during long weeknight trips for sports games. Lisbon belongs to the Big East athletic conference and students frequently travel to games in towns such as Clinton, which is a two and a half hour round trip.

Laures was surprised to find that students also were taking out their laptops to use the Wifi during the daily ride to and from school. The longest bus ride in the district lasts 45 minutes.

Local cellular company EchoVision installed and paid for the router on U.S. Cellular’s 3G network for the bus’s first year. Laures said the district is keeping an eye on the costs of the Wifi bus to see whether it is worth the time and money to outfit more.

“We just want to see in the future if the expense would be less than the benefits,” he said.

Next Article Bedbug Bills Tries to Hold Tenants Accountable for Infestation

Conversation Guidelines

Be Kind

Don't use abusive, offensive, threatening, racist, vulgar or sexually-oriented language.
Don't attack someone personally. Keep it civil and be responsible.

Share Knowledge

Be truthful. Share what you know and what you are passionate about.
What more do you want to learn? Keep it simple.

Stay focused

Promote lively and healthy debate. Stay on topic. Ask questions and give feedback on the story's topic.

Report Trouble

Help us maintain a quality comment section by reporting comments that are offensive. If you see a comment that is offensive, or you feel violates our guidelines, simply click on the "x" to the far right of the comment to report it.

read the full guidelines here »

Commenting will be disabled on stories dealing with the following subject matter: Violent crime, sexual abuse, Amber Alerts, Operation Quickfinds and suicides.