Connecting Scotland is a Scottish Government initiative managed by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. Find out more
Devices and connectivity
Chromebooks and iPads
Connecting Scotland primarily issues Chromebooks and iPads. As outlined in your grant agreement, the device ownership is passed to the beneficiary. These devices are not permitted for use by organisations, as a lending library or to form part of your organisations assets.
The specification of the Chromebooks may vary slightly, but all work in the same way. Some may have an 11 inch screen size and others will be 14 inch.
iPads are all the standard 10.2 inch size with 32GB of memory. Protective cases are provided with all iPads.
Guides and videos on how to use the devices are provided on our Getting Started pages for users.
Connectivity
The default option for connectivity is a Mi-Fi devices provided by Vodafone. We understand that there are exceptional cases in rural communities where signal coverage may be an issue. If this is likely to be an issue please check the postcodes of your device recipients against the Vodafone Network Status Checker and contact us.
Your despatch note will suggest that you need to pair certain Mi-Fi devices with certain sims – this is not the case. You can use any of your sims in any Mi-Fi devices. You should be aware that we ask you to capture certain information about the people getting devices and which sim number they have been allocated. See ‘User details’ for more information. You can find your 11 digit SIM mobile number in the envelope in the Mi-Fi box.
The contracts for connectivity are purchased as business sims under SCVO’s account. This means that individual users are unable to speak to Vodafone directly. If there are any issues a Digital Champion can contact our helpdesk at help@connecting.scot
In Phase 2 we are providing unlimited data for 24 months, subject to a Fair Usage Policy. The sim cards are automatically activated by Vodafone on the date of despatch. This is the start of the 24 month contract.
We want to avoid Mi-Fi devices being unallocated and unused. We can monitor whether or not data is being used on devices and we will therefore deactivate any SIM cards that have used no data three months after the date of activation. We will check the number against the user details and notify you if we intend to deactivate the sim. You will also be asked to return the unused Mi-Fi unit.
You can download a guide for setting up the Vodafone Mi-fi Device or watch a video on how to set it up.