This Operating Plan is focused on achieving six primary goals:

1. Provide “equity of access” for all K12 schools
• Deliver services that support classroom and online instructional and administrative applications
• Provide a common shared education network
2. Provide statewide support to optimize the benefit of the Federal E-rate program
3. Enable and foster public-private partnerships
4. Develop a sustainable funding model to build and support a statewide education network
5. Build the North Carolina Education Network Organization that is centrally coordinated and based on a co-op model
• Leverage existing state resources and organizations where possible
• Is funded for efficiency and effectiveness
6. Achieve steady-state (3 year phase-in) within 3 years

To meet and exceed the School Connectivity Initiative goals, the Operating Plan details five key strategies:

• Establish a shared education backbone that provides for K-12 connectivity.  In the initial or year one phase, the backbone will consist of making use of existing core networks that service the State’s education community (NCREN) and state government administration (NC-ITS).   Core members of the School Connectivity advisory group (NCDPI/SBE, ITS, MCNC, NC State Friday Institute, and LEA Representatives) will make determinations regarding connectivity for each LEA that maximizes efficiency and achieves equity of access.   LEA and school priorities will be determined by the State Board of Education. 
  • Where feasible transition LEAs to fiber-based wide area network solutions such as metro-Ethernet
  • Connect local (last mile) service providers and regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to the shared education backbone
  • Establish common service level agreements with last mile service providers
• Provide an opt-in services model that includes:
  • A comprehensive set of core services supporting reliable, high-bandwidth connectivity including central E-rate and engineering services
  • Value-added network services offered to improve operational efficiency within and among LEAs
• Implement a community-driven collaboration model
• Develop an effective and efficient operating organization that best fits the needs of service delivery and accountability.

Based on the School Connectivity goals and strategies we propose a three-year  program implementation period during which we will implement projects and programs with a scope of work that includes the following.

• Create NC EdNet
• All 2400+ school buildings connected via fiber (or closest practical approximation) to the NC EdNET backbone via fiber where feasible and cost effective
• All 2400+ school connections instrumented for remote measurement and monitoring
• Comprehensive set of ‘Core’ services to support a highly reliable and , high-bandwidth backbone network 
• Offer a set of value-added services  to the LEAs to improve operational efficiencies  (potentially fee based service)
• Statewide contracts created with Service Providers
• Realize Operational Efficiencies by leveraging regional alliances for  delivery of common services
• Effective governance and advisory groups representing all stakeholder

• LEA Wide Area Network Upgrades - Transition LEAs to fiber-based wide area network solutions such as metro-Ethernet where feasible.  Establish common service level agreements with last mile service providers.
• NC EdNet Shared Education Backbone - Connect local (WAN) service providers and regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to the state education backbone. Upgrade backbone as necessary.
• Network Performance Monitoring - Develop and pilot sustainable network performance measurement tools and processes for meaningful and repeatable performance analysis of school WAN and backbone connectivity. 
• Application Assessment – Develop/acquire and pilot tools and processes for assessing/testing instructional and administrative applications to ensure network performance requirements are understood.
• Network Documentation – Develop/acquire and pilot a single relational repository for LEA and backbone network asset, configuration, and connection-level data, and standardized diagramming conventions to graphically portray it.  Develop a methodology for collecting and maintaining the data.

• Establish e-Rate service bureau
• Conduct LEA LAN Health Assessments – Develop cost effective tools and sustainable processes which enable NCREN personnel to characterize the capacity of a content aware network to effectively deliver various profiles of application traffic. Develop application centric capacity planning processes.
• Identify and prioritize set of “core” services
• Establish network engineering /consulting service bureau

• Implement Community engagement process
• Provide continuous Community communications
• Implement collaborative process for all NC EdNet projects

• Design and implement a transitional organization
• Extend a logical and effective organization

• Establish contracts:
• Non-recurring budgets
• Recurring budgets
• Establish LEA funding/reimbursement process and procedure