The Virginia Community Colleges System (VCCS) mission is to give everyone the opportunity to learn and develop the right skills so lives and communities are strengthened. They are made up of 40 official campuses and over 80 satellite facilities (offices, classrooms in buildings closer to businesses, place to teach auto mechanics…) all spread across the state of Virginia. VCCS is committed to helping Virginians acquire the knowledge and skills to seize the opportunities for today and tomorrow. They offer associate degrees, technical diplomas or certificates, college credits to be transferred towards a four-year institution and developmental continuing adult education programs.

VCCS has a strong commitment to providing Virginia families access within commuting distance. VCCS touches close to 280,000 credit students/each year. One way or another they need to have connectivity to all of their locations, campuses and satellite facilities, as every piece of education they provide has a technology component and each location needs access to the internet. For security reasons VCCS has their own private WAN, then the WAN connects to the public internet at select locations.

When it came to choosing a telecom provider one of their biggest challenges was that some of their campuses and satellite facilities were just in metropolitan areas near dense fiber routes. Most of the providers VCCS has worked with, have limited service areas and it was a struggle to get connections to all locations. Segra is able to get everywhere one way or another and they are able to get there economically. Segra’s focus on customer first and working to build solutions tailored to customers’ needs was another reason VCCS chose and continues to partner with Segra.

“Segra has been a crucial partner with the Virginia Community College System (VCCS) for several years. This is especially true in helping us to connect the most remote areas within the Commonwealth with access to our Wide Area Network (WAN), which ultimately connects colleges to the Internet. The colleges and satellite locations served by Segra are often the rural communities lacking high-speed internet access. With Segra’s help, VCCS provides these college campuses and satellite locations with the same reliable high bandwidth capabilities as are offered to our colleges in more urban areas.” – Ralph Lucia, Chief System Architect, VCCS

VCCS has a strong commitment to providing Virginia families access within commuting distance. VCCS touches close to 280,000 credit students/each year. One way or another they need to have connectivity to all of their  locations, campuses and satellite facilities, as every piece of education they provide has a technology component and each location needs access to the internet. For security reasons VCCS has their own private WAN, then the  WAN connects to the public internet at select locations. When it came to choosing a telecom provider one of their biggest challenges was that some of their campuses and satellite facilities were just in metropolitan areas near  dense fiber routes. Most of the providers VCCS has worked with, have limited service areas and it was a struggle to get connections to all locations. Segra is able to get everywhere one way or another and they are able to get there economically. Segra’s focus on customer first and working to build solutions tailored to customers’ needs was another reason VCCS chose and continues to partner with Segra.

“Another service provider had a product they tried to fit VCCS into, instead of making a product to fit our needs. Segra was able to create a solution that was tailored to VCCS.” – Ralph Lucia, Chief System Architect, VCCS

Segra was able to serve VCCS facilities all across the state, and has been a valued, affordable and reliable partner for VCCS since 2007.