The Colombian rural connectivity project Centros Digitales involved 7,000 schools. Students are now getting a better education with indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi, fixed wireless access (FWA), and cloud management from Cambium Networks.
Cambium Networks together with Colombia’s largest mobile telecommunications provider, announced “Centros Digitales”, the most ambitious rural connectivity project in Colombia’s history, providing free, high-performance Wi-Fi connectivity to 7,468 hard-to-reach rural schools in Colombia. the whole country.
In addition to connecting schools, residents of these areas can now find a place within walking distance of their homes to connect their devices and be informed, access online services, take advantage of e-commerce and share research information to boost local economies currently based on agriculture and livestock.
Centros Digitales was announced in 2021 by the Colombian Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies (MinTIC) to bring free broadband internet to schools, universities and communities. The project provides connectivity to the regions of Antioquia, San Andrés, Atlántico, Caldas, Caquetá, Cesar, Córdoba, Guainía, Guaviare, Huila, La Guajira, Meta, Norte de Santander, Santander, Sucre, Tolima and Vaupés.
“We are very proud to participate in a project with a high social impact together with the largest mobile telecommunications provider in Colombia”, explains Douglas Lopez, regional technical manager for the Andean region of Cambium Networks. “Providing connectivity to more remote communities has enabled them to overcome some of the challenges they faced in accessing information and services.”
“The solution includes fixed wireless broadband and Wi-Fi access from Cambium’s ONE Network portfolio. It is gratifying to see how the inhabitants of these communities can now benefit from access to all the opportunities offered by the digital world”.
Happy kids at the school using technology to learn and smiling – education concepts
The wide area network (WAN) and wireless local area network (WLAN) solution includes high-performance Wi-Fi and high-capacity wireless fixed broadband, all converging to be easily provisioned and managed in the cloud.
L’infrastructure comprehends:
– E510 Wi-Fi access point for outdoors
– E410 Indoor Wi-Fi Access Point
– Banda larga fixed wireless point-to-point (PTP) per esterni
– Banda larga fixed wireless point-to-multipoint (PtMP)
– Cloud management system cnMaestro
The project is fully implemented and currently under operation and maintenance. To measure its success, MinTIC is collecting statistics and performance metrics on the use and quality of the networks, so that it can make agile and real-time improvements together with the telecom operator.