One important reason why students like to live in AF Bostäder housing is the high-quality IT infrastructure that has been in place for many years. That is why in 2013 we started to offer 1 Gbit per second – at no extra cost!
For natural reasons, students set higher requirements than the average tenant.
“Students in general are quite advanced in their use of technology, says Mats Rudenschöld, IT Manager at AF Bostäder. “Many also take technology and communication courses or programmes and are therefore directly dependent on a high-performance work environment around the clock in order to carry out their assignments.”
In recent years, the use of streaming has increased dramatically, as has the use of services such as SVT Play, Netflix and HBO Nordic. Traditional, scheduled TV viewing has decreased and more and more people are consuming services via their broadband. Today, 1 % of students use landline telephony, and traditional TV viewing has fallen from 50 % to 14 % in recent years.
“Attempts at renegotiation with our previous service provider failed in the spring of 2013,” says Mats Rudenschöld. “Since 2006, we have had local broadband with a local service portal for telephony and broadband. Speeds have been up to 100 Mbit, which is still considered good, but we always want to improve our solutions and therefore took the opportunity to make a technology upgrade.”
In the following negotiations, AF Bostäder set five basic requirements: high capacity in all outlets, simple administration for the tenants, good customer service with support every day, high operational reliability with rapid rectification of faults and, finally, a low cost.
“What was particularly important was provision of customer service and support in two languages, as we have many foreign tenants,” says Mats Rudenschöld. “Five companies took part in the procurement process and we chose Bredband2, partly because they have a great understanding of the students’ everyday life. Now we have a responsive and forward-looking provider that has a background in the student world and a good awareness of the students’ needs.”
The new super-fast broadband is currently the world’s largest local network with a capacity of 1 Gbit per second. The service is extremely simple to use for tenants, as the broadband is included in the rent and is the same for everyone. All you have to do is put an ethernet cable in an outlet and start surfing. No administration is needed.
“The change has been well-received and we have had the opportunity to visit student rooms to test the capacity,” says Mats Rudenschöld.
"The speed is fantastic. We have also noted that the system is stable during the intensive moving period prior to semesters, when many students connect and disconnect at the same time.”
AF Bostäder owns the network within the housing areas and as the network had been built in a future-proofed way, there was no need to replace fibre or copper wire. The new broadband was initially tested in pilot installations at two housing areas and after that all areas were connected, with next to no problems.
“Currently, there is no private equipment that needs 1 Gbit in order to work,” says Mats Rudenschöld. “But in recent years we have seen great leaps forward in technology including smartphone use that has even surprised several major IT companies. It’s difficult to predict future developments in technology, but we know that when something happens, it happens quickly. Therefore, it feels good to know that we are prepared with what is, essentially, unlimited capacity. Whatever happens, we have ensured that our tenants can continue to stay in the lead.”
Latest update July 13, 2018