National Education reinforces WiFi in its buildings (Update)

If nursery schools, primary schools, colleges and high schools are managed and equipped, including IT, by the competent local authorities, this is not the case for administrative buildings. The ministries in charge of national education, youth and sports and higher education, research and innovation have thus just reinforced the WiFi coverage of these buildings, both central and decentralized services. In this case, WiFirst was chosen as the operator for the maintenance, support and extension of the WiFi infrastructure. This service provider will rely on Extreme Networks solutions.

The digital department for education and the national network skills center had already chosen the Extreme Networks solution in 2016 during an initial call for tenders for around half of the sites (i.e. 1,500 devices). The public contract concluded following a new call for tenders is an extension of that of 2016. It aims to guarantee high-performance Internet access, while respecting the good security and traceability practices required by the supply of such a service.

In addition to the services attached to the ministerial headquarters, the contract concerns 18 academic regions, 30 academies and 97 directorates of the departmental services of National Education as well as the services in charge of youth and sports, higher education, research and innovation. The market aims to standardize the solutions used within the various academies and to provide technical support with transfer of skills to internal teams.

Update: The Ministry of National Education specifies that the wifi service via Eduroam has been available at the central administration since the end of 2018 in all meeting rooms and common areas. The expansion to the set of parts is being finalized for deployment.