The Requirement
Cardinal Newman school prides itself on its teaching facilities. Over several years, the school has been lucky enough to introduce additional Wi-Fi teaching aids to enhance its students learning experience. Unfortunately, the existing Wi-Fi network was struggling to cope with the increased demand being placed upon it. This meant that both pupils and staff were unable to take full advantage of the expensive client devices available to them, not to mention the additional requirement if the school wanted to add more in the future.
Some external areas of the school grounds were also being used for teaching, meaning external Wi-Fi was also needed to cover the extensive site.
The Right Product
Several manufacturers were invited to tender with the criteria being: Site wide coverage with fast hand over to ensure seamless roaming between the multiple buildings, also with the ability to handle intensive usage by multiple classrooms. The EnGenius W-LAN solution offered the best price and performance and met all the needs of Cardinal Newman School to carry their teaching needs into the future.
Incorporating latest standards, and without any ongoing subscription costs and licence fees, the EnGenius solution provides an affordable Enterprise level solution, it is easy to install and set up and could provide everything necessary whilst still meeting the available budget. Along with a Limited Lifetime warranty and free Firmware upgrades for Life, EnGenius was the obvious choice for this project.
The Installation
The EnGenius Neutron Solution included the EWS360AP which is an Enterprise grade 3-stream ac indoor access point with the ac radio offering 1.3Gbps throughput. For the outdoor requirement the EWS660AP access point was selected, this unit also offers ac Wi-Fi at 1.3Gbps.
Both 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 over a 1000 access points. Along with the free Firmware upgrades for life EnGenius has zero licensing fees.
Particular care was taken with planning as most of the buildings on site are Victorian and presented particular problems to ensure no areas were left with poor WiFi service.
The Result
The installation was rolled out over a half term holiday with a total of ninety-three access points installed. All the access points were pre-configured off-site, saving valuable time once the installation was underway and the full EnGenius Neutron Solution was up and running the same day!
A further twenty-five EWS360AP’s were installed in the sixth form building after the initial installation was completed. This took the total access points installed on site to one hundred and nineteen. “The EnGenius Wi-Fi was up and running in just one day. The project experienced no problems, and the Wi-Fi network has performed exactly as we were told. The school has also benefited from a good cost saving, enabling us to buy more devices for students and staff to enhance the total learning experience throughout our establishment.”
Mike Smith, ICT Manager at Cardinal Newman School
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