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ALABAMA’S MADISON ACADEMY
Goes Back to School with WOW!
Glen Laird returned to school 12 years ago and
can’t stay away.
The school is Madison Academy in Huntsville,
Alabama, which has been educating students
like Glen since 1955. A Madison Academy
graduate, Glen is now the Director of
Advancement for the Christian-based private
school with a pre-K through high school enroll-
ment of about 850 students.
Glen led the school’s digital initiative and helped
assemble a talented team to oversee the 160-
acre campus’ broadband network that’s used
to enhance the educational use of technology in
the classroom. “We make technology decisions
based on how to provide the best education
possible for our students,” Glen said. Madison
Academy (www.macademy.org), Alabama’s
first Apple distinguished school, provides every
Glen Laird Director of Advancement
ALABAMA’S MADISON ACADEMY
Goes Back to School with WOW!
student with an Apple laptop
or iPad that benefits students
and student-athletes alike.
“We’re saturated in technology,” added Brian Tissue, Director
of Technology and Infrastructure for Madison Academy.
“Now that we have a solid foundation with WOW!
Business, we can grow off that with voice, video and In-
ternet services we can count on today and in the future.”
According to Glen, one of the tipping points to move from
the academy’s previous communications service provider
(CSP) to WOW! Business occurred in the summer of
2015, when the school’s phone service went down for a
full week. “No school can afford to be without phone
service for an entire week; even in the summer when, in our
case, classes are not in session. So I guess you could say
the voice outage – combined with the poor customer sup-
port we were receiving – turned out to be the final straw.”
That same summer, Glen and Brian turned to WOW!
Business for Internet, Ethernet, PRI voice and video services.
“Network and communications disruptions can threaten
the survival and operation of any business and had become
a problem for Madison Academy,” commented Rachel
Smith, a WOW! Business Senior Account
Executive for Madison Academy. “Some
of the key differentiators that set WOW!
Business apart from our competitors, largely
because we own and operate our own
local networks in the markets we serve,
include our ability to provide fast, scalable
bandwidth and high-performance voice
services. Equally as important to us and Madison Acad-
emy is that we provide a dedicated support team so that
Glen and Brian know exactly who to contact if they have
questions about their services or need a rapid response to
quickly resolve any network issues that may arise.”
Glen Laird his senior year at Madison Academy
“Our faculty is pushing about 80 gigs per day of content from
YouTube alone. Teachers have virtual classrooms, blogs, online
video learning tutorials and other curriculum that requires
reliable Internet access and sufficient, flexible bandwidth capacity
that we can easily scale as needed over the next year and beyond.”
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“In addition,” continued Glen, “WOW! Business has
shown they’re committed to ensuring that we receive
network and IT solutions that are adaptable, scalable,
reliable and tailored to meet our constantly changing
campus technology needs.”
Originally on coaxial cable connections, WOW! Business
built a fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP) solution connecting
two campus locations and the Corral, a new multipur-
pose student service center opened in fall 2015, which
includes supplemental reading materials for high school
students, a coffee shop, lounge area, and campus store.
Moreover, WOW! Business is providing high-speed
Internet access at the academy’s football field, enabling
players and coaches to use their iPads to study in-game
video and to ensure reliable bandwidth capacity for
reporters covering the football team. The same is true
for the school’s other exceptional athletic programs, two
of which in addition to football – boys’ basketball and
baseball – won state championships in 2014.
The fiber, 200 Mbps high-speed Internet access, phone
lines, Cisco phone system, video
and other equipment and services
were installed and operational at
Madison Academy in August.
“The coax-based services we were
getting from our previous provider
got so bad reliability wise, with uptime of only 61 percent,
that we made a decision to transition to another commu-
nications service provider,” Brian explained. “Since we’ve
moved over to WOW! Business as our new network ser-
vices partner we’ve been consistently sitting at five nines
with no hiccups. I’ve worked with numerous major service
providers and of the nearly 20 transitions I’ve done this
one was by far the easiest and smoothest.”
As documented in one of Madison Academy’s seven
principles, the school is committed to providing the
technology, curriculum, and professional development
to challenge and prepare today’s student for success in
college and tomorrow’s workforce. Madison Academy
President Dr. Barry Kirkland and the Board of Direc-
tors are committed to setting the standard for digital
learning in Huntsville’s high-tech community. Likewise,
WOW! Business is honored and dedicated to supporting
Madison Academy, its students, parents, faculty and
administrators as the 60-year-old school continues to
prepare students for success in work and life.
“In just a few months, WOW! Business has already demonstrated
they’re a service provider we can trust,” Glen stated. “Anytime Brian
or I have questions or need help Rachel responds right away, which for
us is a refreshing benefit we weren’t receiving from our previous CSP.”
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