PHOENIX – Cox Business announced today that it has completed installation of a new fiber optic Metro Ethernet network connecting the Tempe School District to its 25 schools. The upgrade in connectivity and speed is “like walking to school versus taking a jet ” according to Hyman Sukiennik, vice president of Cox Business.

This new service provides speeds of 100Mbps connected to 1G of Internet compared to the previous 6Mbps. Now, teachers can run simultaneous, advanced applications and video feeds like Discovery Education and IDEAL e-learning that they could not run before.

"The upgrade to our network has made a dramatic impact on the delivery of supplemental Internet and Web services to our students and staff. The network is more robust, reliable, and quicker," said David Diokno, principal of Scales Technology Academy in Tempe.

"At Scales Technology Academy, all of our students have laptops and use them to support all curricular goals. Students are able to access streaming content and video chat with classrooms across the city, just as easily as they do with students in China!"

Mr. Diokno also shared, "We can now have up to 600 users Web-surfing, accessing resources and communicating flawlessly at the same time--something that would often come to a crawl under our old system. The network also allows us to stream daily announcements to classrooms instantaneously (with files sizes ranging 20-30MB)."

Besides the speed and agility of the new Cox Business Metro Ethernet connectivity, Manager of IT Customer Support for the Tempe School District, David Billings said, "My department now has a system that is streamlined, reliable and scalable." And, added Billings, "We don't have outages when it rains, like we did before."

The District chose Cox Business because of its reputation and willingness to customize services to the District's specific needs. "Unlike other providers that require businesses to choose from a menu, Cox Business provided our District with a customized solution that brought us into the future," said Billings.

About Cox Business

Cox Business provides voice, Internet, data and video services for nearly 250,000 small and regional businesses, including health care providers, K-12 and higher education, financial institutions and federal, state and local government organizations.  According  to Vertical Systems Group, Cox Business is the fourth largest provider of business Ethernet services in the U.S. based on customer ports.  Cox is the currently the seventh largest voice service provider in the U.S. and supports more than 650,000 business phone lines.  For more information about Cox Business, visit coxbusiness.com or call 1-800-396-1609.

Cox Communications Arizona

Cox Communications is the third largest cable provider and a multi-service broadband communications company serving nearly 3 million residential and business product subscribers in Arizona (a product subscriber represents an individual service purchased by a customer). In metro Phoenix, Cox serves approximately 2.5 million product subscribers. In Southern Arizona, Cox serves approximately 400,000 product subscribers. Cox’s 18,500-mile hybrid fiber coaxial cable network throughout Phoenix and Southern Arizona provides homes and businesses with digital television, high speed Internet, home networking, high-definition television and digital telephone service over its own nationwide IP network. During the past eight years, Cox has topped numerous J.D. Power and Associates’ studies of customer satisfaction, most recently receiving top honors for residential telephone & high speed Internet, and business data services and has received PC Magazine’s “people’s choice” award for the fifth time.   Cox Media is responsible for the sale of cable advertising throughout Arizona. Cox Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc and serves approximately 6 million customers nationwide. Additional information about Cox in Arizona is available at www.cox.com/arizona.