Have You Considered Selling Mobile Routers For School Bus Hotspots?

By Ally Kutz, contributing writer

The Coachella Valley Unified District in Salton City, CA, implemented mobile routers on a few of its school busses, creating a mobile hotspot for kids to connect to the Internet, something many lack at home in the district, according to Education Week.

Mobile hotspots have been used on other vehicles, such as in city buses, taxis, and even garbage trucks. California-based company Veniam has implemented its technology in its home city of Porto, Portugal, with more than 600 public vehicles participating. The service is free to users and serves roughly 70,000 people a month, about 50 to 80 percent of traffic that would have instead taken place on cell networks, according to MIT Technology Review.

The California school district example might suggest IT solutions providers could also consider school districts — or more specifically school buses — as a market for mobile Wi-Fi hotspots.

Coachella Valley provided students with tablet computers to use both in the classroom and in their homes, but almost half of the students did not have an Internet connection at home. The school district is hoping to utilize the buses equipped with mobile routers as hotspots in neighborhoods at night in order to provide students with access to the Internet. Deployed on two buses so far, the district still needs to overcome some hurdles like maintaining battery life, possibly by mounting solar panels on the buses.

Another possible use for mobile routers on public vehicles is data collection. Veniam’s technology, mentioned above, can collect information, such as conditions of a city or its roads. Jason Hahn of Digital Trends tells MIT Technology Review, “A simple example of what Veniam’s network can achieve is found in a pothole: When a bus or taxi that’s part of the network hits a pothole, sensors can send that information to city hall, which can use it to identify areas where road repairs are required.” In addition, Hahn states, “If a participating bus or taxi passes a full trash bin equipped with the proper sensor, that information will be sent to the proper department so they can empty it at an optimal time of day.”