Northumberland County Council has awarded a contract worth over £1m to KBR IT & Networking Solutions to provide wireless access to over 200 schools throughout the area.
The contract is part of Northumberland County Council’s Wireless Networking Initiative, which aims to give mobile access to 40,000 local children.
Teachers in the area will also benefit, as it is hoped the new platform will increase communication. Teachers can now manage the Curriculum, Personalised Learning Agendas and their admin tasks when they need to. Staff working remotely will also be able to access their email and personal applications using their usual login process.
Richard Taylor, ICT & eLearning advisor, children’s services directorate, Northumberland County Council said: “Our schools can range from 2 to 2000 pupils and we work with 40,000 children from infants to sixth formers. We required a comprehensive, managed enterprise wireless network capable of meeting our specification for a large number of devices in schools. It’s the future of education – one device per pupil – and we’ve already seen real growth in the number of netbooks, laptops and PDAs being used in schools.”
Rollout of the new wireless infrastructure should be complete by the end of the year, with KBR installing a Trapeze Networks Wireless Mobility platform, which will feature over 4,000 mobility points. This will enable multi-site roaming capabilities and controlled access for guests and members of the public.
KBR is based in Birtley, County Durham. Its clients include Newcastle United Football Club, transport firm Nexus and Perlos, a designer and manufacturer of plastics.
