Education sector set for wireless explosion

A survey predicts that the market for mobile and wireless in the education sector will grow exponentially from $827 million in 2005 to $6.49 billion in 2010.

Juniper Research finds that the market for mobile and wireless in the education sector will grow exponentially from $827 million in 2005 to $6.49 billion in 2010.

Overall expenditure will be made up of sums for the buying in of handheld and portable wireless end-user devices, network hardware, systems software, and outsourced ICT services.

Juniper's wide-ranging research and industry interviews show that independent wireless networks capable of interoperation with 2G and 3G systems are central to the mobile future for education.

Wi-Fi has been widely used since 2002 by major educational institutions for wireless broadband campus networks.

The much greater range and higher data-transfer speeds of WiMAX/802.16 are driving its emergence as a wide-area broadband infrastructure solution for educational networks.

The report's author, Dr Douglas Houston, writes: "802.16 technologies are set to have wide market impact over the next 5 years".

"Major operators worldwide including BT and AT and T have conducted WiMAX trials".

"Among their objectives has been the testing of 802.16 wireless networks' effectiveness in extending existing services to remote locations without wired infrastructures".

"The standard's ability to provide wireless broadband backbones is making it of considerable interest for government and education in developing countries".

Mobile broadband connectivity brings major operational benefits to education.

The report's coverage of current activity, pilot trials, and research highlights the advantages of wireless broadband in terms of efficiency, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.

The report's findings include the following: mobile and wireless expenditure in education on systems software will rise from $0.123 billion (2005) to $0.987 billion (2010), overtaking expenditure on systems hardware, which will stand at $0.825 billion in 2010; portable and handheld end-user telecommunications devices will form the largest component of overall expenditure on mobile and wireless systems in education; sales of over 12 million units will generate revenues of $2.756 billion by 2010; and advances in memory capacity, display and input technology, and seamless interoperability will gradually raise the number of handheld devices acquired annually for use in education to 7.535 million by 2010, overtaking procurement of wireless laptops.

The new study "Mobile education: opportunities and strategies for wireless technologies and applications" is available now from Juniper Research.

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