5G and the digitalization of education

Aimee Rullo, Nokia's Business Development Manager, SLED

Aimee Rullo, Nokia's Business Development Manager, SLED

The pressure is on universities and colleges to prepare their students for a rapidly changing world. Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are driving innovation in almost every part of life. Government and industry are acutely aware of digital skills shortages in many fields and are partnering with educational institutions to help prepare the future workforce. Simultaneously, STEM/STEAM fields are attracting great interest from students, who expect their schools to be technologically advanced and digitally connected.

Most educational institutions are responding by looking for how they can drive digital innovation on their campuses, adopt smart systems in their campus operations and provide state-of-the-art digital services to their students and faculty. In this pursuit, high-speed campus connectivity will be essential and preferably, wireless— if it can meet the performance needs. Both 4G/LTE and 5G private wireless networks make the ideal broadband platform to provide full campus broadband connectivity in support of virtually any use case from AI-assisted video surveillance to autonomous delivery robots.

Connecting the digital student

Many institutions have learned the hard way that approaching the information and communications technology (ICT) challenge in a piecemeal fashion hasn’t been the best. Instead, taking a holistic, platform approach makes it possible to realize cost and data synergies across multiple applications. For example, the same system can be used for serving labs and lecture halls, as for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), or campus security.

This is where 4G/LTE and 5G private wireless networks really shine. Unlike less capable systems such as Wi-Fi, they can match the performance of cabled network technologies such as Ethernet but are far less expensive to install and extend. Additionally, they provide connectivity for a wide range of use cases such as internet of things (IoT) sensors and devices, tele-remote operations of machinery, precision automation, digital twins and autonomous vehicles, as well as bandwidth-intensive applications like video, gaming and virtual or augmented reality.

Campus use cases

Students and faculty members need affordable broadband to access e-learning and digital productivity tools on their mobile devices —in class and around campus. Once equipped with services such as smart podiums, smart boards, and smart lighting, classrooms and auditoriums also require connectivity for data sharing and control.

High-speed connectivity is essential for augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) used in classrooms and labs as well, where students can virtually explore the intricacies of heart surgery or jet engines. Researchers can even benefit from state-of the art wireless communications to experiment with Industry 4.0 technologies and to create 'living labs’ that explore business- and mission-critical IoT applications for different industries.

There are also many opportunities to make higher-education campuses safer and more livable for students, teachers, operations staff and visitors using private wireless. Think, for example, of deploying (drone- or robot-based) surveillance cameras, environmental sensors, fever detection with thermal cameras, emergency call buttons and push-to-talk or push-to-video group communication applications. Connected digital billboards can disseminate information and emergency announcements, and secure point-of-sale terminals can support food and beverage services, library loans and tickets for concerts and events.

Campus operations and facility management can be transformed through building automation, environmental control systems, and data from IoT sensors to manage on-premises infrastructure, water and power. Reliable broadband coverage and connectivity can also help institutions develop new campus-wide logistics systems using autonomous mobile robots (AMRs).

Research and engineering

Universities are increasingly partnering with industry and government to solve our biggest problems. The scale of challenges like climate change and pandemics are elevating fields such as biogenetics, materials science and machine learning -putting university research at the center of our social transformation.

High performance, private wireless networks and edge computing platforms enable the distribution of research and collaboration across university, industry and government labs. Although physically separated, they can work virtually in real-time sharing data, video and augmented reality information. These capabilities will boost collaboration and eventually, enable breakthroughs in fields as diverse as energy, AI/robotics and medicine.

Several universities and research institutions around the world have recently launched 4.9G/LTE and 5G initiatives on their campuses and announced collaboration projects with industry and public sector partners.

In Australia, the University of Technology Sydney is building and running a state-of-the-art 5G innovation facility at the university’s Tech Lab campus. One of their projects explores how 5G and edge computing can be used to offload the processing power of a collaborative robot (Cobot).Additionally, University for Business and Technology in Kosovo is rolling out a 5G private wireless network to enable research and testing use cases driven by immersive, internet of things (IoT) and AI technologies, and in Germany, the Technical University of Kaiserslautern is deploying a 5G standalone (SA) campus-wide private wireless network.

Spanning five leading research centers in the state of Baden-Württemberg, the 5G4KMU project is providing small and medium-sized enterprises with an expert introduction to 5G to help them develop new 5G-based products, applications and business models. And, in the United Kingdom, the University of Strathclyde has joined forces with Nokia to help utilities prepare power grids for emerging technologies through improved communications capabilities.

Needless to say, we now live in a hyper-connected world in which big data, IoT and AI are reshaping almost everything we do. Universities and colleges have a key role to play in preparing young people for this transformation, as well as boosting original research and collaboration with government and industry partners. A critical enabler of this activity will be high-speed, low-latency wireless networks based on technologies such as 4G/LTE and 5G. To best position themselves for success, educational institutions can start by building a solid connectivity platform that can be their launch pad for reaching this new world.