[Q] Force GSM off over WIFI

[virus786]

Hey :biggrin:

I have a weird question. This seems like a fairly technical forum. So hear goes.

I work at a place where we are implementing WIFI at certain private schools. (This is for middle school kids). Each kid gets a nexus 7 tablet.
When they are connected to WIFI they will be on a student only VLAN and by default ONLY have access to the student repository hosted on site at each school which contains the content they work/learn with.
Internet access will be granted as needed.
All of this has been sorted, planned out and configured.

One of the requests though from our client is the ability to force DISABLE any kind of GSM radios on the tablets.
So that the kids cannot circumnavigate the WIFI and ultimately have un-monitored internet access at school (through GSM).

We have looked at solutions such as www.mobileiron.com and www.air-watch.com but we are not 100% sure this will work for us, and it is quite expensive (seems to be more aimed at the corporate world).

Perhaps any input from the community?

Any input / ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Ty

EDIT: Location - South Africa. We have 3G nexus 7 tablets. Client already has the GSM tablets as that was what they were using before our WIFI implementation.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Buy Wifi only Nexus 7s.

EDIT: Do they even make GSM Nexus 7s?

 

[Trombe]

The current nexus 7 WiFi model shouldn't have gsm radios or even a sim slot to begin with so this shouldn't be an issue unless I am missing something. New nexus 7 coming out may or may not have a WiFi only model.

 

[virus786]

In south africa we have 3G nexus 7s.

 

[gorcorps]

I wonder if you could flash a non-3G nexus 7 rom without screwing up anything else. Do you have access to at least one of these units to try?

 

[virus786]

I wonder if you could flash a non-3G nexus 7 rom without screwing up anything else. Do you have access to at least one of these units to try?

We have a nexus 7 of our own in the office. Will need to confirm if its a 3G variant. However it might not be a practical solution.
Keep in mind these schools have 100+ nexus 7 tablets at EACH school. Of which there are 10+ schools.

 

[shabby]

Remove the sim holder so they can't use a sim.

 

[WelshBloke]

Kids are just going to tether to their smartphones anyway. I doubt that they are going to physically put sims into the tablets.

 

[lopri]

This app can disable mobile network.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.mangelow.network

 

[Fardringle]

Do the schools already have the Nexus tablets? If not, simply make sure you purchase the wifi only models.

 

[gorcorps]

Do the schools already have the Nexus tablets? If not, simply make sure you purchase the wifi only models.

We've already been through that. The client already has them.