Network Nebraska

A stack of books topped with a graduation cap on a wooden desk in a library, surrounded by floating neon-outlined educational and digital icons like light bulbs, a laptop, an envelope, a thought bubble with a graph, a document, and a person icon.

Network Nebraska Home

Network Nebraska is a collaborative statewide networking effort, guided by the Nebraska Information Technology Commission (NITC), that shares telecommunications resources, network services, and applications among eligible participants. "Network Nebraska" is the term used to describe the statewide multipurpose telecommunications backbone and all of its associated service offerings and support. Network Nebraska is made possible through a consortium of K-12, higher education entities, libraries, and other educational entities working together to provide a scalable, reliable, and affordable infrastructure capable of carrying a spectrum of services and applications.

Why Us?

Entities join Network Nebraska-Education to lower their transport and Internet costs and improve the quality, reliability, and speed of their telecommunications services. Network Nebraska-Education works as a broker of services using the State of Nebraska and the University of Nebraska contracts. As an example, since 2007, Network Nebraska-Education has been able to lower the unit cost of commodity Internet by 99% for its members through aggregated demand and competitive bidding. Nebraska K-20 education now enjoys one of the lowest unit costs for commodity Internet in the entire country. Network Nebraska-Education is also the official Sponsored Education Group Participation (SEGP) pathway to Internet2, which enables access to a nationwide 100Gbps backbone and faster routing.

Who Uses Us?

Network Nebraska-Education members number over 290 entities in total, including:

99.6% of K-12 public school districts
100% of Educational Service Units
100% of the University of Nebraska
100% of state colleges
100% of community and tribal colleges
54% of private higher education
20% of private K-12 schools
2% of public libraries

Join Us

To join Network Nebraska-Education, each entity must sign a Memorandum of Agreement and pay the monthly fees, which provide the financial support to maintain the consortium support services and statewide backbone. An education "entity" is defined by the Nebraska Legislature as "a school district, a private, denominational, or parochial school, an educational service unit, a community college, a state college, the University of Nebraska, or a nonprofit private postsecondary educational institution". Commodity Internet is optional, but a highly sought-after service of Network Nebraska-Education.