Connectivity Requirements

The following rules comprise the technical requirements for eligibility for Ohio educational entities (as determined by the Ohio Department of Education) to participate in the Ohio K-12 Network:

  1. Connectivity between the buildings and the Ohio K-12 Network must comply with one of the three approved logical connectivity models. The logical connectivity model in use must abide by all other rules as established on this page.
  2. Direct connectivity from districts to the OARnet Backbone in model 1 (see below) is only applicable for designated "large urban" school districts.
  3. All funded network connectivity options must operate in full-duplex network transmission modes and the minimum bandwidth to any building must be at T1(1.55Mb/sec) speeds or greater bi-directionally.
  4. Districts that use connectivity model 3 (see below), where multiple buildings connect back through a single intermediate access point, must adhere to the  4:1 connectivity ratio. This means that no single T1 may support more than four individual buildings in the upstream direction to the Ohio K-12 Network.
  5. For connectivity models 2 and 3 (see below), including managed services (i.e. fixed bandwidth IP-based services provided by a local carrier or vendor) and wireless services, connections must meet the following technical requirements:
    • At OSI Layer 2 the customer is provided a dedicated, private network, isolating all network traffic from other customers of the services provider (e.g., VLAN, VPN or private physical network). 
    • The customer must have full Layer 3 control over the service (e.g., control of the routers to determine routing, open ports, transmitted protocols, access lists and other IP management or security features, etc.).
    • The service meets all other requirements as stated on this page.
  6. All data being sent over wireless WAN connections must be encrypted using a minimum of a 64-bit encryption, and preferably a 128 bit method.

Direct Connection to the OARnet Backbone

This model is restricted to those receiving explicit designation by the Ohio Department of Education.

Building to ITC Connection

Building to District Intermediate Access Point

Last Modified: 9/12/2014 2:16:21 PM