ARE-ON cuts costs for members by leveraging national programs

The Arkansas Research and Education Optical Network (ARE-ON) has been fulfilling its mission to deliver value to our members by leveraging national opportunities to control costs for our member’s IT budgets. If that was too much marketing speak, here’s what we actually did: in 2021, we began providing a new managed border router (MBR) service directly to our members. This service not only reduced the personnel time spent to connect to the ARE-ON Network, but also the costs of the equipment required.

When Internet2 (I2) completed its equipment transition to the Next Generation Infrastructure (NGI) routing platform, a pricing deal was established to allow a portfolio of networking products to be purchased by the state networks and other I2 partners. ARE-ON recognized the opportunity to leverage this equipment pricing for our members, not just as a purchasing vehicle, but also as the core of a managed service business model. With resource-constrained community colleges facing talent shortages, we combined equipment leasing, technical installation, and expert support by ARE-ON engineers into a managed border router service package. ARE-ON pursued cutting-edge, yet costeffective routing hardware to install for our member institutions. As of early 2023, there are more than 20 installed managed border routers across our member base.

On top of the equipment services, AREON added the support of federal funding programs to round out the offering. There is a long-standing partnership between ARE-ON and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Institute for Digital Health Initiatives to participate in the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) Rural Healthcare Fund Program. This partnership enables our members to receive reimbursements for the cost of broadband and other network services that support their healthcare education and delivery programs. In 2022, USAC approved reimbursements for all our members participating in the MBR service, with up to 65% of the annual costs returned to the institutions.

Our members participating in this MBR service can now reduce their capital costs by outsourcing the service to ARE-ON as a trusted partner. Plus, our Arkansas members are receiving discounted service costs due to the pricing advantages received through the ARE-ON partnership with Internet2. By facilitating the reimbursement program with our UAMS partners on behalf of our member institutions, our members have realized reimbursements of most of the anticipated annual service expenses. It’s a win-win scenario that’s a beneficial model to repeat for the benefit of member institutions.