Why good Wi-Fi Connectivity is Essential in Education

The State of Connectivity in 2025

At the beginning of 2020, the Connected Nations Report ranked the UK 45th in overall fixed broadband speed. By the end of that year, due to the Covid pandemic, we had slipped to 47th. At the time, less than a quarter of British homes and offices could access affordable full fibre broadband. As a result in 2021, OFCOM introduced a new regulatory framework to supercharge the rollout.

The UK government incentivised existing networks to invest, while making it cheaper and easier for new entrants to the market to build using Openreach’s ducts and telegraph poles. As a result, the UK has seen one of the fastest rates of full fibre broadband rollout in Europe, with industry investment ranging between £3bn and £6bn each year.

Now in Q2 2025, around seven in ten premises (69% or 20.7m) have access to full fibre connectivity, while coverage of gigabit capable networks has increased from 11.6m premises (40%) in 2021 to 25m (83%) last year. More than seven in ten premises boast options and can now choose between two or more different ultrafast broadband networks.

Today, most homes are equipped with potentially excellent connectivity, capable of running multiple streaming services simultaneously, intelligent utility systems for heating and security, all while supporting multiple devices per household member. In the last five years, the average domestic network has grown from supporting three devices to over twelve. In addition to traditional PCs and tablets, wearable tech like watches and health monitors, smartphones, speakers, IOT plugs and AI assistants have proliferated. The youth of today have become accustomed to this capability at home and in the homes of friends.

HOWEVER..

The Connectivity Gap in Education

The same cannot often be said of educational environments. Many educational institutions are sweating legacy wireless technology that limits connectivity; from reception and primary schools to sixth form colleges and universities: and don’t forget Educational support services and special needs units such as (SEND and SALT) who are often neglected because they are not seen as front of house.

This lack of connectivity severely limits the staff capability in lesson delivery, and the student experience of an ‘engaging’ education.. Many remain tethered to the past, still using wired solutions. The fundamental drawback is that these limitations restrict the learning, working and socialising potential of students and staff.

Wired ‘endpoint’ networks limit learning and hinder educational progression. The restriction to wired devices means students often use ‘programs’ instead of ‘apps’, rendering a generation of classroom technology unusable. Modern portable devices allow for learning outside computer labs anywhere there is coverage and ‘applications’ offer social connectivity and integration with whiteboards, projectors and so much more.

This inevitable shift toward digital experiences (in school and by extension at home) demands more than basic Wi-Fi. Digitisation has altered human interaction and the quality of education so dramatically that the student experience, grading and school rankings now all depend on connectivity capable of delivering a superior learning experience.

What we need to do.

Next generation wireless is a necessity. Education cannot. In fact, must not be left behind.

Next Gen Wi-Fi is Essential

Digital and Remote Learning

The Covid19 pandemic redefined the paradigm of Home/Work and Home/School. The necessity of ‘remote’ during this period removed the notion of education being static and offline. Tech innovation learnt from Social Media; engagement, attention retention and consumption models were brought to bear within educational eco systems ergo it became normal to connect with education from anywhere, via Wi-Fi.

Government initiatives to ensure all students had access to a laptop or tablet changed expectations so today, students want and expect agile learning environments where they can connect to Learning Management Systems (LMS) from anywhere at any time.

Educators are rapidly adopting devices to facilitate untethered learning, including laptops but predominantly tablets and smartphones for the tactile interface. Cloud based apps, collaborative resources for lesson delivery, and Learning Management Systems for remote grading are accelerating learning but all of these tools rely on wireless connectivity. Wi-Fi as an extension of the core network is becoming the foundation of all educational strategy. This is often overlooked until after devices have been bought or onboarded, and budgets have been expended.

Wi-Fi as an extension of the core network is becoming the foundation of all educational strategy. This is often overlooked until after devices have been bought or onboarded, and budgets have been expended.

At this point, legacy Wi-Fi networks cannot provide the performance needed to support their intended use and the return on investment is severely diminished.

What we need to Understand.

Facilitate BYOD Environments to Reduce Expenditure

All education environments are feeling financial pressure, global macro economics and volatility in the markets has resulted in technical equipment becoming more expensive as it is sourced overseas. Despite CAPEX incentives from the government, the OPEX costs of ongoing licensing and cloud service subscriptions persist applying pressure on the establishment long after the project funding has been consumed.

Gone are the days when schools could invest in expensive computers and tablets for students with impunity, the 1:5 ratio of devices to students is gone; 1:1 is now the new norm. BYOD policies allow students to use their own laptops, tablets, or smartphones, reducing institutional hardware costs. However, effective BYOD policies require robust Wi-Fi infrastructure capable of delivering security, restriction and high performance connectivity.

The Right Equipment for the Job

Educational establishments generally do not need the most technologically sophisticated hardware on the market. Many educational institutions often overcompensate for poor performance or technical knowledge by purchasing the most advanced hardware, this creates an expectation that future refreshes must be similarly expensive.

This is a false perception, with the targeted use of surveying, understanding the digital consumption behaviours of the users, designing for the foreseeable five years, and correct installation and configuration; overall lifecycle costs can be significantly reduced.

Focus Personalised Learning

Portable devices can deliver 1:1 learning in any location on campus, this aids teachers in encouraging independent and self initiated learning among students, both in and outside the classroom, whilst also developing creative ways of teaching. There is a lot of pressure on our youth to succeed and social and education stresses can be enormous. The ability to deliver self initiated learning in a place of peace can allow students to positively progress at their own pace.

Applications created for tactile devices in particular tablets, smartphones and touch screen laptops can deliver content in a way that is customised and more engaging. The pace of content delivery can be tailored, as well as adapting teaching methods to suit the pupil best (audio, visual, hands on). Monitoring of a student’s progress can be more measured so immediate feedback can be provided to students so they can quickly understand any errors, enhancing lesson retention.

The Goals of the curriculum and the student can be personalised based on user cases ergo difficulty can be adjusted based on real time assessment. This represents a huge area of expansion in education, entirely reliant on wireless connectivity without interruption.

Enhance Digital Resources for Higher Education

Modern Wi-Fi facilitates the use of digital resources and multimedia in the classroom. Educators can integrate interactive educational videos, simulations, augmented and virtual reality experiences; and other multimedia elements into their lessons to enhance understanding and engagement.

Wi-Fi in conjunction with fabric networks enable the seamless streaming and integration of advanced integrated solutions:

Interactive videos and simulations.
Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) experiences.
Seamless streaming of highbandwidth content.

Benefits of Modern Wi-Fi feature sets:

Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be): The latest ratified Wi-Fi standard, offering extremely high throughput (EHT), low latency, and multi-link operation (MLO), which allows devices to use multiple frequency bands simultaneously for better performance and more consistent connectivity allowing for ultrahigh speed data transfer whilst roaming, essential for augmented reality environments.
The Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax): The incumbent standard expanded Wi-Fi 6 into the 6 GHz band, reducing congestion and improving speeds for AR applications and high definition streaming.
Multi-Link Operation (MLO): is a new feature of Wi-Fi 7 that enables devices to transmit and receive data across multiple bands simultaneously for the first time, improving reliability and reducing lag.
320 MHz Channel Width: Wi-Fi 7 doubles the channel width compared to previous generations, although we will use it sparingly, it allows for higher data rates, stream redundancy and smoother streaming experiences.
4K-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation): can be leveraged to increases data density per signal, improving throughput by 20%—ideal for 4K/8K video streaming and AR applications.
MU-MIMO (Multi-User, Multiple Input, Multiple Output): is an iterative enhancement of Wi-Fi efficiency by allowing multiple devices to communicate with an access point simultaneously and direct collaboratively reducing latency in AR and VR environments.
OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access): When correctly implemented, improves network efficiency by dividing bandwidth into smaller sub channels, ensuring smoother performance for high bandwidth applications; good for lecture halls and high user density environments.
TDM (Time Division Multiplexing): TDM allocates time slots for different signals on a single channel between different clients allowing more cost effective access points the ability to handle more client connections.
Beamforming: Beamforming is a technology that originated in RADAR that has been adapted for Wi-Fi and enhances communication by focusing signals directly toward receiving devices rather than broadcasting them in all directions. This improves signal strength, reduces interference, and increases data transfer speeds.

Ten to fifteen years ago, much of the modern features released were considerd the perview of large corporate enterprises and beyond the cost of education. But now this is not the case, the high end technology is universally implemented and being constantly improved, and yet the benefits are rarely realised within education particularly Early Years and Primary School. Because of the lack of specialist knowledge in IT support staff, these benefits were, and still are, simply not implemented.

Improving student to student collaboration

As a result of 15 years of social media grooming and the fact that we are now in the era where over 95% of learners cannot remember the time when there was ‘no internet’, many students today find it easier to engage through tactile digital devices. Removing this opportunity through a lack of Wi-Fi optimised networking with an expectation of 1:1 device to user ratio is a lost chance to improve student wellbeing and education.

Wi-Fi connected devices enable collaborative learning environments where students can work together on projects, share resources and engage in online discussions in real time. It facilitates communication and collaboration among students both within the classroom and beyond.

Improving communication with teachers

Embracing new ways of communication isn’t just helpful for educational purposes, it can also support the mental health of students. Some students simply cannot express themselves completely in person or within the group dynamic, Wi-Fi enabled devices can host programmes that grant students the ability to voice concerns they have about school or home environments in a secure, indirect and comfortable manner.

The combination of all this technology also enables the use of software that no only monitors student educational progress but also their mental health in real time. This can facilitate teachers with the chance to intervene sooner to assist students where necessary. The same early intervention can be taken with issue such as bullying or poor mental health without the student needing to communicate with teachers or staff. This has saved many lives in recent years across schools in the U.K.

Closing the Digital Divide in EdTech

A 2019 Oxford University study found many children were academically disadvantaged by lack of home internet access, despite owning personal devices that are internet capable. This divide was highlighted during the pandemic, where many students were unable to partake in remote learning, negatively impacting their educational progression. It became evident for these children, access to internet connectivity and the wider world is especially vital at school.

OFCOM and the government addressed this directly for the consumer markets but this has yet to be fully implementing within education establishments. It is a mammoth task.

The 2022 Promethean report exposed a clear mismatch and a growing divide between the recognised value of EdTech for teachers and pupils, and the percentage of school budgets being put towards it. More than 90% of teachers agree technology is a great way to engage students, but 50% say not enough is being spent on EdTech. This figure will only rise in 2025 and beyond as the need to keep learning semi remote and agile continues to grow.

Enabling learning excellence with future focused IT

Closing the gap requires more than just increased funding, existing resources need to be utilised in a smarter manner.

Technology refreshes need to be consultative, they have become to complicated not to be. The need to highlight and focus on potential improvements, fully implement the modern feature sets to provide the expected functionality and benefits for educators delivering the content to the students. Each installation going forward is expected to last 5 to 10 years by necessity which is the entirety of a students education life where a poor solution will contribute to a poor education.

Legacy networks were not designed and cannot support the rising number of connected devices. Loss of connectivity now results in lost engagement, increasing the burden on teachers.

The delivery of education has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. Parents cannot be expected to keep up with the pace of EdTech evolution. The government must resume accountability to support the schools and students; to regulate service providers once again.

The IT industry too needs a change of perspective must stop targeting education as a government funding opportunity. Social responsibility is needed for the results being shaped, because the benefits of a well educated population ultimately serves us all.