The price of internet for Alberta’s public sector continued to drop this month, creating even more opportunities for digitally intensive learning and content creation. Members of Alberta’s Internet Buying Group saw their set rate for bandwidth go down by another 18%, moving from $2.75 to $2.25 per Mbps. 
This is the 10th price decrease for the bulk buying service, which was developed in 2012 to address the needs for equitable internet prices for all Alberta public sector institutions. So far, the Internet Buying Group has saved members organizations (which includes post-secondary institutions, K-12 school authorities, health care centres, and other government institutions) over $5 million in network fees. This has allowed them to continually stay ahead of the growing demand by staff, researchers and students for faster internet.
In its own effort to stay ahead of the demand, Cybera recently doubled the capacity of Alberta’s Research and Education (R&E) Network from 20 Gbps to 40 Gbps. Cybera’s staff also worked with Google to upgrade its Cybera-connected cache to double its bandwidth capabilities, from 10 Gbps to 20 Gbps. This will ensure that local Google traffic stays local, and does not have to travel to a US-based data centre. This, in turn, means faster loading times for Albertans.
“As exciting as it is to make internet more affordable for Alberta schools and public institutions, for me, it is just as important to ensure that our network is keeping up with the growing demands placed on it,” says Jean-Francois Amiot, Network Manager at Cybera.
“Much of our time is spent looking at the big technologies coming down the pike, like artificial intelligence and gamified learning, and trying to anticipate their networking needs. This way, when our members decide to adopt virtual software for each classroom, or they get a major internet price decrease and are able to bump the amount of bandwidth they are ordering, we can stay one step ahead!”
To find out more about Cybera’s networking services, including the Internet Buying Group, visit our Network overview page.