Pupil Home Broadband Access

[mike_ash]

I have been asked today to look at providing home broadband access for a handful of our pupils. I know that at some point there was a government scheme or grant available for low income families but it appears this has come to an end. Have any of you got any suggestions of the most cost effective way to do this and any problems that you have come across. I think the school's idea is to buy each child a netbook and a mobile broadband dongle, however the type of contract required i.e. pay monthly, pay as you you, capped and uncapped is not clear

 

any ideas would be much appreciated

[laserblazer]

I suspect part of the failure of the government scheme was the increase in laptop sales on Ebay!

[synaesthesia]

That screams "responsibility" at me. Something goes wrong or something happens, the school is instantly liable. I hope some fairly watertight contractual paperwork can be drawn up for it.

With broadband deals as they are these days I'm not sure it would be worth the outlay - perhaps it'd be more beneficial to provide an advisory role rather than paying for that sort of thing outright. You could help finance it, but then again how would you be sure the money's going to the right place.

 

Plus you'd perhaps want to ask, would it actually be that beneficial for the kids? I can understand a netbook for instance to help with homework buy *why* a connection - that's something they can do for the majority of the time they're in school anyway.

[pcstru]

We (probably) want to do the same. Pushing the agenda is the Pupil Premium and the fact that schools have to show how the money is spent. Pupils without internet access are more likely to be 'digitally excluded' (scuse the language).

 

For best value I'd be looking at fixed line broadband. 3G dongles offer a poor experience and few real benefits. As a home broadband package, they are dire.

 

Biggest issues (IMO) are legal/contractual. You need clear agreement that you are supplying an unfiltered, unwarranted (etc) service.

 

The eLearning foundation might have some useful resources. Slightly different focus, but they must have covered some of the same ground.

[synaesthesia]

I wonder if people could provide a 3G dongle with a whitelist of usable sites. I know EMBC do/did dongles for filtered connections to their network for instance. May well be worth looking at, it'd certainly help lighten the load of responsibility.

[twin--turbo]

What's the geographical location like?

 

With a bit of thought , design and planning you may be able to offer WiFi using something like an Altai A8 SuperWi-Fi hot spot. You may also find you can hit local primaries too.

 

 

As mentioned though, it's a legal mine field being the service provider.

 

Rob

[cpjitservices]

Also 3G dongles at the best of times are rubbish! I had one for all of 2 months... constant disconnects and really slow speeds it was like going back to dial-up!

 

Although it's better than nothing.

[twin--turbo]

Sat in the pub yesterday used my Phone teathered as the wifi was junk.

 

Got 3by2 which is not bad, but it uses my capped data....

 

Got free wifi in this pub today and it works nicely.

 

Rob

[synaesthesia]

Do you do anything for work, or do you just sit in pubs?

[twin--turbo]

Do you do anything for work, or do you just sit in pubs?

 

Days off, but still keeping in touch with work and doing some personal learning and research... So actually not realy a proper 100% day off.

 

Rob

[SchoolsBroadband]

I wonder if people could provide a 3G dongle with a whitelist of usable sites. I know EMBC do/did dongles for filtered connections to their network for instance. May well be worth looking at, it'd certainly help lighten the load of responsibility.

 

Hi there,

 

this is something we're developing at the moment. I'm hopeful to have it ready and a few more tasty new product start of December.

 

Essentially though as we're an O2 wholesale partner we can white label their sims and voice / data airtime, combined with content filtering and mobile device management. So we'll be able to content filter any device whether onsite or offsite. This can be using ADSL, FTTC, Leased Lines, bonded, 3G, 4G (coming soon too!)

 

Ta

 

Dave