The Utah Education Network (UEN) is a broadband and digital broadcast network serving public education, higher education, applied technology campuses, libraries, and public charter schools throughout the state of Utah. The Network facilitates interactive

video conferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...

, provides instructional support services, and operates a

public television Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

station (

KUEN KUEN, virtual channel 9 ( UHF digital channel 36), is an educational independent television station serving Salt Lake City, Utah, United States that is licensed to Ogden. The station is owned by the Utah State Board of Regents, and is operat ...

) on behalf of the Utah State Board of Regents. UEN services benefit more than 60,000 faculty and staff, and more than 780,000 students from pre-schoolers in Head Start programs through grandparents in graduate school. UEN headquarters are in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

at the

Eccles Broadcast Center The Dolores Doré Eccles Broadcast Center (often shortened to Eccles Broadcast Center) is headquarters of three broadcast stations and a statewide educational consortium. The center houses KUED, KUER, KUEN and the Utah Education Network. The fa ...

on the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

campus.

History

The

Utah State Legislature The Utah State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Utah. It is a bicameral body, comprising the Utah House of Representatives, with 75 state representatives, and the Utah Senate, with 29 state senators. There are no term li ...

formally established UEN in 1989, but the statewide collaboration of public education and higher education started more than two decades earlier when

KUED KUED (channel 7), branded on-air as PBS Utah, is a PBS member television station in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The station is owned by the University of Utah, and has studios at the Eccles Broadcast Center on Wasatch Dr ...

-Channel 7 signed on the air in 1958. The station built translator towers to beam its signal to remote communities, and eventually the station placed analog

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ran ...

equipment on some of those towers enabling two-way

teleconferencing A teleconference is the live exchange of information among several people remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system. Terms such as audio conferencing, telephone conferencing and phone conferencing are also sometimes used t ...

for education and government. The system was initially named SETOC (State Educational Technical Operations Center), renamed as EDNET and is now UEN IVC (Interactive Video Conferencing). In December 1986, KULC-Channel 9 (now UEN-TV) started broadcasting as Utah’s Learning Channel, and in 1994 UEN started UtahLINK, the Internet component of the Network. All of those services now operate as the Utah Education Network. UEN-TV and sister station KUED were broadcasting digitally by June 2012, but experiments in statewide digital broadcasting were underway as early as 2004.

Services

Three infrastructure services are integral to UEN’s mission of networking for education. Students, parents, educators, and local communities all benefit from these services. They include: *Networking Services, to extend and maintain UEN’s broadband and digital TV networks, including the UEN Wide Area Network, Internet access and filtering and securing monitoring. *Application Services, to provide video conferencing, library and learning management resources at high efficiency through shared support and statewide purchasing discounts. *Support Services, to assist the users of UEN infrastructure and hosting, including teachers, faculty, librarians and regional support centers.

Funding

UEN is funded by the public through an annual state appropriation, e-rate reimbursements from the FCC’s

Universal Service Fund The Universal Service Fund (USF) is a system of telecommunications subsidies and fees managed by the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intended to promote universal access to telecommunications services in the United States. Th ...

, and from local, state and federal grants. In fiscal year 2013, UEN funding totaled $38.2 million with about 45% ($17.4 million) appropriated by the Utah State Legislature. Through public/private partnerships with local telecommunications companies UEN sustains local economic development with $16.5 million of Networking Services budget paid to Utah telecommunication providers for leased circuits.

Service area

UEN’s geographic reach stretches from Logan to St. George and from the Grouse Creek to Navajo Mountain. The Network connects more than 1000 public schools, nine state colleges and universities, and eight applied technology campuses. Those connections serve more than 841,000 students, teachers, faculty and staff. (2013). Utah broadband project improves communication at special needs school. The Quilt Circle, (2013 Edition), 9. Retrieved from http://www.thequilt.net/images/stories/attachments/thequiltcircle2013_web.pdf

References

External links