Academy invests in multi-million pound tech upgrade

A community academy, serving 1,400 students, has just installed a new wireless local area network (WLAN).

Shelfield Community Academy in Walsall has deployed an Extricom WLAN by working with G4 Networks. The implementation is part of its "technology for learning" strategy, which aims to offer students good online access of rich media in a very high demand environment.

It will also support extra services such as IPTV for both staff and students to aid learning.

Russ Nicholson, assistant principal at the academy, said in a statement: "Migrating to a wireless network is a significant investment for the academy. Over the next few years, it will support the majority of operational and learning applications."

He added: "So the WLAN we deployed had to demonstrate performance and high capacity such that the user experience matched that of a wired network."

The project is a multi-million pound upgrade which will also include voice over WLAN for the entire campus.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.