1 and 2, the taxpayer, no doubt. Because we pay 50 dollars a box to set them up (which central IT can do ourselves, but don't because then we don't get the warranty benefits, don't worry we're fixing that.) and then pay for "extended accidental protection", to the tune of another 110 per box. The hardware vendor makes out great, the taxpayer gets screwed.

3. in the school system I work for, about 3 days, because they refuse to properly staff support.

4. Upgrades only come after we have spent the cost of a new machine supporting the old ones, so about every 8 to 10 years or so, again this is based on the school system for which I work. Schools get told to upgrade, blow the money on other unnecessary things, then cry to us when their 8 year old machine isn't fast enough to even load our minimal image to it. We have some schools sitting on P3 machines because the principals wasted all the tech money for the last 12 years on other crap, and then have the nerve to DEMAND that central IT "get them something"

What does the buyer do when the guts of the TV are outdated in 2-4 years? buy another one? Unless the guts are replaceable, or people start buying tv's every 4ish years, this won't work.

TWX is spot on in his comments. A bit to add...

Get classroom management (for computer labs) software like LanSchool. Then you can face the machines however you want. With software like this you can see all the monitors, lock computers, turn the internet off, etc. You can get a demo version from their website (www.lanschool.com)

Also make sure the room has proper cooling. We have schools losing machines left and right because AC is "too expensive" So is replacing lab machines every 2 years due to failure from overheating. At one school their entire lab failed in about 14 months, and cost 4x what installing AC would to replace. This brings another point, if a tech (like me) tells you something LISTEN TO IT. Usually this isn't a problem as it's the principals that truly don't listen to us. We tell you something, you tell your principal and then nothing happens. If this happens to you, email the tech and get a written suggestion from them, forward it to your principal. It'll save your ass if same principal tries to blame you later on for a failure that could have been avoided by LISTENING TO THE TECH. I hate to use caps, but it's that important.

The problem with personal devices in education is 1) The average user expects us to support them. We take no responsibility for anything a school didn't buy through the correct channels. 2) Legally protected data travels round on machines we cannot track 3) See #2 4) See #2

I work for a school system and we have an all or nothing policy when it comes to the network, Why? People bring in their own wireless routers, they don't change the default password, and leave dhcp on. Eventually, people get 192.168.x.x addresses, instead of 10.x.x.x, this cuts them out from internet access. Then we get 15 tickets in the same building over 1 router. It gets better, then I have to find it, easy enough with my phone or tablet with a wifi finder app, but then I have to explain to the user why they can't have it. All of you here know how that goes so I'll spare you. After all that, then I have to physically go to all 15 users and reset their connections, because our helpdesk is useless and dameware never seems to work. Wasted productivity? You betcha. I have recently come up with a way to better convince people to leave their shit at home. I break into their unsecured router, with no wireless password, and set one. or if they have files shared I access those and copy them to a USB stick, and then delete the original files. After showing the user all the things I was able to do in about 2 minutes, they usually don't complain. This one lady though was a real pain, I told her, politely, why we can't allow these things about 5 times, she would take it back home for a week or so and cause the mess in the 1st paragraph after about 2 or so weeks again. I went to my boss, the principal, you name it and this woman refused to stop it. One day, after the 50th ticket caused by her, I had had enough. I got into the router and flashed the wrong firmware to it, bricking it. She hasn't done it since.

Because outside of Sprint 4G service (at least as far as I know) 5GB capped plans are all that there are in the US :(