Hacker News Reader

Comment by NetBeck | Hacker News Reader

Schools could buy these for students instead of parking buses outside to act as WiFi hotspots.

Buying MacBooks for each student instead of using a separate hotspot? Also, is this a common thing for schools to do these days?

Given schoolwork is now done so ubiquitously on a computer/online, and especially after the pandemic, a lot of districts/schools have had to present solutions for connectivity for families, because of financial need and otherwise. Source: am school tech admin

Isn't buying each student a connected macbook and data plan kind of pricey? Most school already suffer from poor funding/low budget, this seems like it would be painful.

Our school district has an in-between approach: they buy cheaper devices (ChromeBooks and iPads) without cellular connections but they have Wi-Fi hotspots they’ll give to qualifying students who wouldn’t otherwise have access.

My hope is that more voters will see municipal Wi-Fi as a valuable utility since we have dark fiber all over the city because they’re choosing not to compete with Verizon.

For sure, that makes sense to me, but it seems like Chromebooks have cornered the market for this kind of work by being cheap, easy, and targeting this demo.

Kids also don't have a great reputation with treating tech that isn't their own with respect, based on my experience in high school.

The closest thing I remember to this is during COVID lockouts, the schools would have WiFi in the parking lot so that kids without internet at home could be driven to school and work in their cars. Never made good sense to me, if a family doesn't have internet at home how likely are they to have an adult with a car who can sit with a kid in the school parking lot all day?

But if cost is similar per sim card; then it cost increases ~ 46x

Reply on news.ycombinator.com