The Birmingham Media Hub
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The Birmingham Media Hub |
Media Hub Phase 1. 1997-2001The Birmingham Media Hub began in 1997 with funding from the European Regional Development Fund and match funding from Birmingham City Council to develop a broadband digital network in Birmingham. The aim of the network was to provide access to training materials with video streaming capability for disadvantaged communities. Phase 1, as it has become known, involved connecting 14 node sites to the Media Hub base (The Hub) using 2MB/s leased lines from Birmingham Cable (now Telewest). The 14 sites cover the areas of high rise housing, education, community resources and small business. Training packages provided included Words in Action and Numbers in Action and two business centred packages, How to get your head around Accounts and Keeping your customers Happy from IBM, The Driving Theory Test and Advanced Driving from 4DI and an English tuition package using video streaming at 1.5MB/s. A substantial amount of training was provided using the internet from complete beginners to writing web pages. This included the BBC WebWise course. Click here for technical information about Phase 1. At the same time as Phase 1 was being developed, East Birmingham College (now part of City College, Birmingham) were developing a similar architecture network to connect up their Community Connection sites. As some sites were common to both networks, Media Hub provided a managed internet service to these sites as well. Community Connections experimented with using high quality video conferencing for distance learning. Next Page, The Employment Resource Network. |
| Mediahub Phase 1 | Community Connections | The Employment Resource Centre Network |