Most discussions are centred on the campus-based WiFi network billing system. But primary and secondary schools also have their own web management needs, and there are special constraints in the school environment that make it impossible to apply the same solutions directly.
The users of primary and secondary schools are not real."Subject of payment"
The student dormitories are designed for university students who can afford to pay for their own expenses.——The full charge-back process is very unwieldy if the system’s charging entrance and notification mechanism are only for students, without reaching them.
More importantly, the Internet scenes in primary and secondary schools are mainly educational scenes rather than personal consumption ones.——The cost of the iPad or computer connection to the school network in class is usually borne by the school and not by the student personally."Charges"The meaning of the term has changed: instead of charging students, we need to keep statistics and control the use of networks in different regions and types of equipment to prevent abuse and guarantee priority for teaching."Network use management"Not in the traditional sense."Fees to users"。
Student equipment control has a higher priority than the billing
One of the core demands of primary and secondary schools in network management is equipment control: to prevent students from playing with their mobile phones during school hours, from accessing inappropriate websites, and from limiting the use of non-learning Apps.
The school WiFi network billing system needs to combine the type of authentication identity and equipment if it is to be valuable in primary and secondary schools——This scenario requires systems to support equipment type identification and time-time strategies, not just account dimensions.
Coordination of the unified platform of the Education Directorate and local school management
In this case, schools need to first confirm whether they are in conflict with the Education Board platform. Is there a need for approval from the Education Board?
If this level of relationship is not understood, the system that schools purchase on their own may conflict with or be covered by the platform of the Education Board.
Real limits to the ability of a carrier
Primary and secondary schools usually have no dedicated network management team, and the IT chief is often a person/manager who is responsible for both machine room management and web maintenance, as well as daily teaching information-processing. A school WiFi network billing system that requires fine configuration and continuous maintenance is difficult to use with this staffing.
For primary and secondary schools, the system is more user-friendly than its functionality.——These are the real priorities for primary and secondary school selections, not the number of accounts or costing models that support them. If manufacturers cannot match product design to the capacity of the primary and secondary schools’ transports, then the function is not useful.
Special scenes of boarding schools
Some schools are boarding, and the use of the Internet during school hours requires extra control.
These functions are not supported by every system, and require specific verification when selecting a model. Writing the special needs of the boarding system in the specifications is a prerequisite for ensuring that suitable products are procured. Do not acquiesce to the fact that it does not support or assume that it supports them because they were not mentioned during the manufacturer's presentation.——It must be clearly confirmed.
Large-scale disparities in small and large schools
Some rural primary schools have only a few hundred students, and some large urban secondary schools have thousands of students, with wide disparities in size. System hardware and authorization costs for thousands are clearly excessive for small-scale schools; systems designed on a small scale may not be sustainable under pressure from larger schools.
For schools with limited funding, cloud service models could be considered——The school WiFi network billing system is provided in the form of SaaS, which charges a number of accounts without self-built servers. This reduces prior input, but needs to be assessed for data security and network stability requirements.
The network management needs of primary and secondary schools are unique in nature, and they cannot be framed by the procurement philosophy of higher education.