Work begins this month on a new high-performance network for our world-class campuses. The work will assess the Wi-Fi coverage of the current network before its upgraded on a building-by-building basis at the end of 2023 and throughout 2024.
As the single biggest investment ever made into IT infrastructure, University of Bristol Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Evelyn Welch believes, “Our capital investment is not about shiny new buildings, but about providing the right environment…particularly our digital infrastructure”.
When the current network was originally designed, no one could have anticipated the extent to which digitisation would transform teaching, research and learning in the decade that followed. Many replacement parts to the current network are no longer manufactured, making the structure in its current state vulnerable. Our new network has the potential to move us permanently towards more interactive learning and inquisitive teaching in the future.
Post-pandemic, we increasingly access the connected world through our fingertips. COVID-19 accelerated the need to exist online, so much so that traditional face-to-face teaching has been enhanced by shifting the student experience to a virtual space. Our University now promises an in-person education enhanced with the very best of blended.
Upgrading our network will…
- Enable an academic to live stream lectures on campus with fluid, stable connectivity to thousands of students around the world.
- Mean that a student can link multiple devices securely to support their study, social and entertainment platforms anywhere on campus.
- Allow a researcher scalable connection to conduct experiments and store data autonomously on a secure service.
- Empower a member of Professional Services to seamlessly join meetings and carry out tasks on the move, or from their desks, on a network that is sustainable.
The benefits of a new network will be felt by all 30,000+ members of our community. Anyone who joins the local network on, or away from, campus will experience a seamless, secure, sustainable, and fully supported digital environment.
Chief Digital Information Officer Keith Woolley says, “We’re excited by the possibilities this investment will bring and can’t wait to see the full potential of our new next generation network. With this transformation the University of Bristol will be better connected to one another, our partners, and our communities… it will provide a platform for innovative global research, creative teaching and facilitate options for inclusive learning for years to come.”
If you have any questions, we’d love to hear from you. Please email modern-network-project@bristol.ac.uk or visit our SharePoint pages to find out more.
This scope of work is part of the Digital Strategy, which feeds into the objectives set out in the 2030 Vision and Strategy.
Written by Aggie Hewitt, Communication Officer, Digital strategy