Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) has completed a project to connect 172,000 pupils to broadband internet.
The project is part of a larger programme to create a wide area network (Wan) which will also link a 24-hour CCTV network to prevent vandalism and theft in the county’s schools.
More than 20,000 school PCs have been connected to broadband across the region.
All Hertfordshire’s secondary schools now have access to 10 Mbit/s broadband, while all the primary schools have 2Mbit/s connections, says Chris Seviour, IT technical adviser to HCC.
‘The system has now linked 150 schools, which is a big landmark for us in the Wan programme,’ he said. ‘The nature of the internet links means those schools will now get guaranteed access to high-speed internet connections’
The project to connect Hertfordshire’s schools is part of a £31m deal with supplier ntl:Telewest Business which began in April 2004.
Its completion means that HCC has met a national government target to have all schools in England and Wales connected to broadband services by the end of the year.
Having broadband in schools is crucial to bridging the digital divide, says Gartner analyst Scott Morrison.
‘To make sure that everyone obtains IT literacy as part of their education, you need to not just be able to use a computer, but also use it to access the internet for communications and information gathering,’ he said.
‘Broadband can deliver the kind of connectivity to PCs that can allow a school to have large numbers of children online at the same time.’
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