The existing St Mary's University's Halls of Residence Internet service, was over 7 years old and was outdated and cumbersome. It was operated by individual routers assigned to each student which was time consuming to manage and offered limited access to students (limited to within individual rooms). Hence, this project was initiated to implement an improved service for users whilst achieving cost savings for the University compared to the current contract.
Having explored the various procurement options, the project has concluded that an OJEU Tender Competition was the best opportunity to obtain an improved service at a competitive (reduced) cost. As a result of the OJEU process the contract was awarded to: Glide.
Site surveys and installation of equipment in Halls of Residence were scheduled to work around occupancy of the Halls of Residences to avoid / minimise any disruption to residents and the new service was installed configured and fully functional in September 2019.
The total cost of the new service over 5-year contract achieved a 40% cost saving compared with the previous service.
Furthermore, the new service provides residents in our Halls of Residence with an improved Wi-Fi service including:
- Increased bandwidth (at no extra cost to the user)
- Roaming within Halls of Residence including common areas
- Access in the immediate vicinity outside of (some) Halls of Residence
- Access in any/all of the Halls of Residence.