by Alan Jacques
ALL Limerick secondary schools now have high speed broadband connections as a result of a €30 million, three year programme rolled out by HEAnet, Ireland’s National Education and Research Network.
The 35 local post-primary as well as special and hospital schools have 100 Mbps broadband connections which will serve as a catalyst for the further integration of ICT and digital skills in the classroom.
The announcement was made jointly this week by Education and Skills Minister, Jan O’Sullivan TD, and Alex White TD, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.
The national roll-out followed a successful pilot phase of the programme in 2010 when a first tranche of 78 schools nationwide were connected to the HEAnet network. A decision to expand the programme to all 780 schools was announced by Government in February of 2012.
The national reach of the programme has required the building of new infrastructure in locations where there was extremely limited high-speed broadband availability until now.
“Delivering high-speed broadband to every post-primary school in the country has involved digging streets, laying fibre cable, erecting masts and radio dishes, and installing network equipment across the length and breadth of the country,” said HEAnet chief executive John Boland.
“Schools have played their part in preparing for the installation of the service, with higher education institutions facilitating access to their campuses to enable delivery of cost-effective services to schools in regional areas,” he added.
The broadband service being provided to the schools is of an extremely high quality and delivers symmetrical bandwidth connectivity meaning it provides equal upload/download speeds simultaneously; an important consideration in cloud computing and two-way communications such as video conferencing.
