Sunderland City Council, the University of Sunderland and BAI Communications have announced a partnership to deploy advanced wireless technologies across the university’s campuses.
They are making the move as part of Sunderland’s smart city programme, saying it will support research in key areas, enhance teaching and improve the experience of students.
A 5G test lab will be developed on the Sir Tom Cowie campus at St Peter’s, making the university one of the UK’s first to be 5G enabled.
Features will include a new internet of things (IoT) network across the university’s campuses, which are expected to improve operational efficiency for a broad range of services such as estate management and footfall analytics.
There will also be enhanced public Wi-Fi across the campuses using the EduROAM service. This will complement the public Wi-Fi service being made available across the centre of Sunderland and the Roker area as part of its smart city infrastructure roll out.
State-of-the-art learning
Sir David Bell, vice chancellor of the University of Sunderland, said: “Enabling students to benefit from technological enhancements on campus will enhance their education in a state-of-the-art learning environment.
“In addition, the creation of the new 5G test lab is a major step forward and will cement the university’s place as a leader in research and innovation in the field.”
