My sister, who lives in regional Victoria, needs broadband for her primary school aged son's education.
A couple of questions:
I think that's a pretty low estimate, if we assume that school is video conferencing 7 hours a day, that will use it all up, plus content. Also, it assumes that once there's internet it'll just be used for school and nothing else… But I imagine that once there's internet it becomes a bit of an open season, kids figure things out very quickly
They don't video conference the whole time - my friend who is a teacher does a video roll call in the morning and then one or two lessons by video conference and the rest is work that they do on their own
It will need to be much more. For example at my house, 1 student in primary school, working through google classroom and online activities as directed by the school as well as zoom classes during the day was using approx 3 gb a day roughly. (Schools using Adobe connect use more data to VC, schools using MSteams to VC apparently use less)
If they go to a state school, you need to get directly in touch with the school and they will help you out. I know several teachers and most of them were helping students with this late last term (before term ended early).
If they go to a private school, I don’t know if they still have the same assistance but once again, contact the school.
SIM cards can be as low as $10 for like 40GB of data at supermarkets when on sale. This is another avenue. Get one to test it out and see how quickly it goes through.
It is just for school.
Even at 10GB a day, that's ~220GB a month. Looks like some sort of unlimited plan would be required.
I think you'll find they're implying 10gb a month, not a day.
Ah, ok. Then a 40GB sim should be plenty per month.
They are saying a month not a day. I don't even think we have unlimited [sim] data plans here, if we do they are quite expensive for this use case.
Vodafone have unlimited data sim plans (but throttled after a data limit)
Speak to the school. Schools where sent a survey they had to have filled in by tomorrow on how many students didn't have any device to work on and how many didn't have internet or insufficient internet etc then DET would look at data and send out laptops and dongles accordingly to schools. If school doesn't get enough or none etc they would need to use funding from somewhere else - like camp funds, excursions etc that aren't happening now. Regional schools are likely to be prioritized more than metro but can't say - just opinion.
Camp funds, excursions etc is not money given to schools by DET (its given by parents and think of it like a trust fund) and cannot be used to supplement other funds. DET schools have also been directed to NOT purchase these items as well. Internet dongles will be given to Yr 11 and 12 students first so if you are in primary, I wouldn't be very hopeful of getting one anytime soon, if at all.
Might not be those exact funds but (some) schools have been told to find funding from other places and to purchase things if they don't have spares etc. All schools are handling differently which is expected. It is all unknown and mismatch conflicting stuff getting told/passed on. I know my schools I work at have been told to purchase laptops if they don't have enough spare to hand out. Dongles told to wait but if they get parents after or don't get sent enough they are to purchase also if they need to.
Not saying I'm fully correct or your wrong - different for different states also. I just see emails going to the prin for my places and what I'm asked to do. People just doing what they can to help each other :)
"It is all unknown and mismatch conflicting stuff getting told/passed on."
And that is the problem. We are looking at also purchasing additional laptops but it may mean diverting funds and not employing additional staff for ESL, Learning support etc for the remainder of the year.
Does your sister not have the internet at her house? It would be probably better value to sign up to Aussie BB or something rather than mobile broadband. The need for internet is only going to increase in the next few years.
No, she doesn't. Yes, I agree it would be better value to go with NBN, but she's on welfare, so won't be paying for it herself. So I'm just trying to find the cheapest option.
10-18 GB at most. Could be even less depending on the content downloaded and the conferencing software they are using.