In today’s China, university learning has long moved beyond the classroom. Some students want to access academic papers while spending holidays at home; others use fragmented time on high-speed trains to finish assignments; and fieldwork teams may need to upload data in real time while searching references on the move. For this generation, “access to knowledge anytime, anywhere” is increasingly becoming a basic expectation.
Yet delivering “anytime, anywhere” access is not easy. With traditional internet + VPN, off-campus connections often suffer from high latency, unstable sessions, repeated logins, and frequent interruptions. Traditional 5G private networks can improve experience, but service activation and deactivation may still rely on manual approvals and account processes—slow to provision, heavy to manage, and difficult to scale for highly mobile university populations.
This is the context in which the Peking University 5G Free-Mobility Private Network Project Based on CARSI was created. China Unicom, Peking University and Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. set out to answer a straightforward question: Can faculty and students access campus intranet and the public internet off campus with fewer steps, higher efficiency, and reliable security—almost as naturally as being on campus?
1) A “minimal disruption” system design
The project minimizes behavioral change by aligning with users’ existing practices rather than introducing new ones. Students do not need to install extra software or repeatedly enable/disable VPN clients, and universities do not need large-scale reconstruction of their campus networks. Addressing the common VPN challenge—annual license purchasing while demand fluctuates between term time and holidays—the solution avoids both idle capacity in low-demand periods and shortages during peaks, improving overall cost efficiency. Service activation is streamlined through automation, eliminating the need for high-volume manual verification. In short: the network absorbs complexity, so users can stay simple.
To achieve this, a regional 5G free-mobility private network is deployed in Peking University’s data center, built in coordination with the CERNET backbone and CARSI federated identity. Students use their standard operator 5G data; campus resources remain within the campus security boundary; and the university identity system remains the authoritative source. What changes is the experience: under compliant and secure controls, access becomes more continuous, operations more restrained, and usage more natural.
For many students, the change can be summed up in one sentence:
“I no longer worry about connecting to campus systems—every minute I spend studying is truly spent learning.”
2)A trustworthy approach to mobile access
Technically, the project leverages operator 5G traffic steering and edge computing capabilities to direct campus-bound traffic into campus intranet, while internet traffic continues on the operator’s public network. This enables parallel access: campus resources follow the campus path, and internet resources follow the internet path.
In addition, the China Unicom app is integrated with CARSI federated authentication. Students and staff can activate the service on mobile devices. The university acts as the identity provider, and the authentication result is synchronised to a security gateway for authorisation and access control—forming an end-to-end, verifiable trusted access chain.
For universities, trusted identity, controllable paths, and traceable access records mean mobile access is no longer a trade-off between convenience and risk, but a governable capability that can be sustained over time.
3)From one site to scale: a replicable model
The Peking University pilot proved feasibility in real conditions and clarified a path for broader adoption:
Build on CARSI federation as a common identity foundation for over 1,000 universities;
Lower deployment and O&M thresholds through regional service and modular components, making the model accessible even for resource-limited institutions.
This replicability is not only about scalability—it is also about reaching more young people more fairly, so universities across different regions can start from a more comparable baseline for digital learning and research access.
4)More continuity in learning, more access to opportunity
This practice does not try to replace real experience with grand narratives. It delivers an improvement that fits everyday learning:
When a student can read papers and submit work while away from campus;
When a postgraduate can continue experiments and writing during commuting and business trips using fragmented time;
When a student involved in field practice or volunteering can still access courses and resources smoothly;
What they gain is not “one more network,” but fewer unnecessary waits, fewer repeated steps, and fewer interrupted moments.
The project aims to make connectivity more “invisible,” access more “certain,” and educational resources more “inclusive.” When mobile networks can carry learning and research more reliably, young people can devote more energy to what matters most: understanding the world, creating value, and moving toward a wider future.
Let knowledge go beyond campus, and let learning happen freely in everyday life.