As part of its ‘Broadband Sandwell’ initiative, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC) wanted to establish ADSL connections to approximately 700 homes of disadvantaged families with children attending schools within a pilot project to promote remote learning.
Challenges
SMBC did not want each site to connect directly the Internet, instead stipulating that all data be routed via the ‘Broadband Sandwell’ server farms. This way, students accessing the Internet from home over these links will benefit from the same standard of content filtering and security as they would if they were in school. As a pilot project for learning gateways, SMBC was particularly eager to achieve minimum cost per connection.
Solution
Updata provided the managed ADSL links by ‘unbundling’ two local telephone exchanges at Smethwick and Bearwood and delivering connectivity to SMBC’s centralised server farms.