The Federal Communications Commission won praise from the White House and educators alike with its vote to pursue high speed broadband access for the nation’s schools by modernizing its E-rate program. The FCC says the federal program has already helped bring Internet connectivity to 97% of the nation’s classrooms, but that half of those schools report download speeds that are slower than that of the average American home. To remedy that situation, the FCC wants to prioritize funding for new fiber deployments, lower barriers to new fiber construction, and ensure that schools and libraries can access funding for high-speed Wi-Fi.
High-speed Wi-Fi may end up being the most important part of the FCC’s initiative, as more and more students are using wireless devices in the classroom. Companies that specialize in Wi-Fi for schools know that high speeds are not enough. Unlike many public space Wi-Fi solutions, those in schools need to handle dozens of concurrent users who all try to connect at exactly the same time.
“It’s not an easy thing to do when you have 30-40 students in a classroom all firing up at the beginning of class, all trying to get to one place and download something and make something happen,” said Bruce Miller, vice president of product marketing at WLAN vendor Xirrus. “Within the first few minutes of class, if the wireless isn’t working, the teacher will abandon the technology and go to the whiteboard.”
Xirrus has helped many school districts take advantage of the federal funding available through E-rate. Miller sees the government’s renewed commitment to E-rate as an important complement to the work that companies like Apple are doing to equip schools with mobile devices. He says that some schools may not be prepared for the reality of multiple tablets trying to connect to a Wi-Fi access point at once.
via WiFiNovation | Scoop.it More READ
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire