Low-income school kids to be offered free WiFi broadband

In an effort to make sure low-income families are able to connect to the web for learning purposes, and to give them access to social networking, Broad Oaks Sports College, a secondary school in the Manchester area, looks set to be the first to offer free wireless broadband access to around 1,000 children.

Speaking on the scheme, Mark Sanders, chief executive of Bury Council, commented in a statement: “This project is all about bridging the digital divide so that young people in poorer areas don’t fall behind. We hope that it will help our students with both their educational achievements and their social networking opportunities.”

The cost of the project is expected to total £140,000 and will be funded by Bury Council alongside Broad Oaks Sports College. In total the project will consist of nine different WiFi zones offering the UK’s first free broadband service to a school community. The first zone has already been successfully installed and covers 120 homes.

It’s not the speediest service, so those using the network would only be able to carry out basic web browsing tasks. Although a 100Mb fibre provides the backhaul service, the average speed serviced to individual homes is around 850Kb.

To protect the WiFi network only schoolchildren and their families will be given a username and password. Although, as it will be possible to connect to this service without any extra equipment, there’s always the possibility that users outside of the school community could gain access to the network. It was only at the start of the month a security expert working on behalf of the internet service provider TalkTalk spoke out on the dangers of WiFi hacking.

This is a very different approach to providing broadband access to low-income families than that suggested by the government earlier in the year. In January it confirmed it was working towards providing free laptops and broadband access to those successful in claiming a Home Access grant.