The ICT team of the Department of Education - Bohol has tapped Auza.Net for Internet access service to be deployed at various public high schools in the province. The deployment project will be done in three phases. Auza.Net will first deploy to schools within reach of its wireless mesh network. Then the company will utilize antenna towers and wireless network equipment provided by the Gilas Foundation to connect the recipients of the Gilas project to the Internet. In the last phase, the company will determine options for schools that are outside its coverage area and do not have antenna towers and wireless network equipment.

In the meeting conducted on December 11, 2009 at the Bohol Public School Teachers and Employees Association (BPSTEA) 4th floor conference, Auza.Net explained to different school heads and ICT coordinators the challenges that needs to be overcome in order to provide a reliable Internet connection for schools that are located in areas with limited options to connect to the Internet.

Auza.Net has already deployed to at least two high schools in Panglao island and is set to continue survey operations in the next few weeks. The company will utilize a specialized firewall system that will ensure only appropriate content are accessible by the students. This system will also implement the latest techniques in web caching to ensure that access to websites is as fast as possible. Proprietary bandwidth sharing techniques will also be implemented to ensure that the service will fairly share bandwidth among all users.

DepEd-Bohol has a very great challenge to overcome if it is to ensure that high school students will have access to the Internet. Bohol’s terrain and islands present huge obstacles in establishing connectivity in remote areas. In fact, in some locations, the only alternative would be to use satellite based Internet access service. Auza.Net hopes to deploy its services to complete deployment to around 20 schools in early 2010.

DepEd’s DICP program will fund the project and hopefully will be sustained in the next several years.