Wireless Networking - Bishop David Brown School

Bishop David Brown School is a mixed secondary school on the outskirts of Woking with 575 students and is continuing to expand rapidly. To accommodate the increasing number of pupils from the surrounding areas the school had secured funds for expanding and renovating its existing site.
 

A refurbishment project completed in August 2016 included an extension to provide two new classrooms, four new Science laboratories, two ICT rooms, a textiles classroom as well as the refurbishment of ten English and Maths classrooms. At the heart of the refurbishment was the requirement for a new Wi-Fi system to replace an existing solution that was performing poorly and not meeting the daily teaching requirements for an increasing number of pupils, whose IT requirements were becoming more demanding, with new client devices added to the network monthly. 

In addition to that there was also a requirement for extensive outdoor Wi-Fi to cover the external playing fields and gardens for sports days and other potential outdoor learning opportunities.

Several Wi-Fi manufacturers were invited to tender including EnGenius Networks. The criteria were for site wide coverage with fast hand over to ensure seamless roaming, with the ability to handle intensive usage by multiple classrooms. The EnGenius WLAN solution met the schools’ budget and crucially the performance of the EnGenius solution met all the requirements that had been specified by the school. 

EnGenius is a leading global manufacturing brand of Senao Networks, Inc. and a networking expert in wireless communications and radio (RF) technology. An award-winning company, EnGenius solutions are made in an ISO-9001 & TL-9000 certified SMT manufacturing facility.

The EnGenius portfolio of networking solutions includes a comprehensive range of Cloud managed and On Premise managed wireless solutions as well as Cloud managed Gigabit, 2.5Gigabit and 10Gigabit switches that deliver long-range connectivity and robust feature sets. Incorporating latest standards, and without any ongoing subscription costs and licence fees, the EnGenius solution provided everything necessary and was still able to meet the available budget. Along with a Limited Lifetime warranty and free Firmware upgrades for Life, EnGenius was the obvious choice for this project.

The EnGenius Neutron Solution included the EWS360AP which is a 3-stream ac indoor access point with the ac radio offering 1.3Gbps throughput. For the outdoor requirement, the EWS660AP was selected, this unit also offers 
ac Wi-Fi at 1.3Gbps. Both the indoor and outdoor access points can be managed either by a controller or the free ezMasterVMware management software which is able to control more than 10,000 concurrent users and 1000 
access points. Ongoing Firmware upgrades are free for life and there are no licensing fees.


The installation was rolled out over a half term holiday with thirty eight internal and one external access points installed. All the access points to cover the playing fields were added later. All the access points were pre-configured off-site, saving valuable time once the installation was underway and the full EnGenius EnSky Solution was up and running the same day!

After the initial installation, a new extension was added to the site and a further five internal access points added including three external access points to cover the playing field area.

 

Bishop David Brown school now is now able to offer both its student and teaching faculty access to reliable, fast
Wi-Fi wherever they are on school premises. Teachers can maximise lessons and teaching times with no interruptions due to failing Wi-Fi access.

“The EnGenius Wi-Fi was up and running in just one day. There were no problems, and it has performed exactly as we were told. There has been a good cost saving to the school enabling us to buy more tablets for students, enhancing their learning opportunities”. 

John Dickinson, Bishop David Brown’s ICT Technician