Learn How Utah School Districts are Eliminating the Homework Gap

Murray City School District and Wasatch County School District Have Launched Private LTE Networks Using Baicells to Eliminate the Digital Divide.

“The great thing about the LTE technology is that we don’t have to have one flavor or one end-to-end solution from one vendor. We’re able to involve an entire community of vendors with private LTE and it is written to a standard. For us, that was important because different vendors have different business cases and different business challenges.“

Technology Supervisor Murray City School District

“It doesn’t require ten million dollars to set up a site with Baicells. It’s easily obtainable, it’s super easy to configure, and with our initial training, we found it to be way more simple than we thought it would be.”

Networks Supervisor     Wasatch County School District

Get a full picture of how we did it!

Connect More With Less

In the beginning of 2020 the COVID pandemic struck, and Murray City School District became the first school in the state to shut down and enter quarantine. UETN and the schools had been researching for the best solution to begin providing students with high-speed Internet access. Their research pointed them to a fixed wireless private LTE network. Private LTE networks operate at a standard and provide the security, monitoring, and filtering capabilities required to make sure that students were using the network appropriately. Cost, availability, and an easy-to-deploy and maintain network were other important considerations for the district as they needed to provide a wide range of coverage with their limited budget and human resources.

“The Baicells equipment was really instrumental. We were able to order [the base stations and CPEs], get them here, installed and hung up so we could begin providing this important connectivity to our students.”

Superintendent of School Murray City School District

In 2019 the schools took note of the growing online applications that students needed in order to participate in their homework and began to plan how they could help their students access these applications. Initial plans involved sending students home with Chromebooks, but it quickly became apparent that some students didn't have sufficient internet access at their homes, making the Chromebooks useless. The schools then began searching for a solution that would allow them to broadcast Internet to their students at home.

Ultimately, the schools deployed Baicells Nova 436Q paired with indoor Atom CPEs to broadcast Internet to their students' residences, while UETN handled the LTE network's core. The schools’ next steps are to continue educating other districts of the potential of a private LTE network so students across the state will be able to benefit from a reliable internet connection.