Some 30,000 students and staff at the University of Bristol in England look set to benefit from a series of significant upgrades being delivered by Telent, which will improve both the local WiFi network and upgrade the university’s core network and infrastructure that connects buildings across multiple campus locations.
The company has already completed the design and is now testing the new Wi-Fi solution, which will be deployed across 229 separate campus locations using over 12,000 wireless access points. The full network, once live, should be able to support over 300,000 devices at the same time.
As part of this project, Telent is also designing and implementing a management platform to help the university effectively deliver the new IT services that the network will enable. The design of the network began in 2023 and will be a “multi-year programme of work” to deploy across campus.
Jo Gretton, CEO at Telent, said:
“With an array of devices and technologies now available and necessary to enrich the learning experience of students in the higher education sector, high-performance and world-class connectivity and IT services are essential. The new network will be fundamental to power the university’s mission to continue to attract world-class students and research projects and help drive the University of Bristol up the UK and world university rankings.”
The Modern Network Programme is said to be adopting a “wireless-first” approach that is incorporating “many innovative new features“, although none are specifically mentioned in the announcement itself. As this is such a large project, then Telent has already setup a sort of replica of what they plan to do at their Camberley facility, which has helped to test everything out before deployment.