Students offered bedroom web access

The University of Birmingham is providing voice and internet services in halls of residence for more than 4,200 students to connect to departmental information and e-learning facilities.

The HallsNet high-speed campus network will provide students with unmetered internet facilities, email and voice calls.

An additional 350 student rooms will be connected to the network in September and a further 5,000 once two halls of residence buildings dating from the 1960s are refurbished in the near future.

"Students will be able to study from the convenience of their bedroom and also use it for their leisure and playing games," said Lesley Stewart, general manager for student accommodation at the University of Birmingham.

HallsNet will be run as a managed service by value added reseller Damovo, and will use an Ericsson MD110 convergence communication system over a Cisco local area network.

Damovo will also provide a student helpdesk and maintain equipment and infrastructure.

Students recruited by Damovo will help with technical support and other queries about the service.

By providing students with access to resources in their rooms the university hopes to be able to reduce pressure on campus resources in libraries and faculty departments.

The university is also currently reviewing the viability of running voice over the IP network.

Students will pay for the service as part of the fixed cost of their monthly rent.

Stewart said that a student community portal, for students to interact and access information about upcoming events through the web, was also under development.

Damovo is providing similar network services to eight other universities in the UK, including the University of Aston and Roehampton University.