Docking stations. Three quarters of the districts received docking stations with the mobile devices. Some of those districts removed desktop PCs and made the mobile device the primary piece of equipment while others allowed the mobile device to be used in addition to the desktop PC. The other quarter of the districts chose not to receive docking stations with the devices.

Connectivity. Responsibility for identifying and procuring connectivity contracts was the under the purview of the districts . More than half of the districts procured external broadband cards in hopes of having ubiquitous connectivity in the field. The other districts either opted not to obtain external broadband cards or were not able to do so during the pilot period. This meant that they relied on the internal wireless cards to use free wireless “hot spots” within the county or relied on their own connectivity solution at home. Although regardless of the network connections used, all access to the State network was through a virtual private network (VPN) that secures the transmission to and from the portable device and the network. In addition, PointSec encryption software was installed on each device before deployment. Of those districts that procured external broadband cards, most of them were deployed at the same time as the devices although some districts were delayed in obtaining and distributing them.