Education
Wilson says: “I believe that
PoC is simply the best
solution for the end-user
requirements within
schools and colleges. Most
of the time, the radios are
there for convenience to
pass messages rather than
for anything particularly
mission-critical – the
attraction of having robust
products with a low
maintenance requirement
that are free to air after
purchase seems to be
very attractive for cashstrapped
schools.”
He also thinks PoC
is suitable for university
campuses, which are
often spread over multiple
sites, sometimes several
miles apart. “This leads to
some interesting coverage
challenges, particularly
with security teams who often cover multiple sites on campus.
The wide-area nature of these end-user requirements has led to
many requests for PoC enquiries from reseller partners, as they
can oer a more ‘out of the box’ solution than installing lots of
repeaters and complex antenna solutions to get the uninterrupted
coverage such users require.”
Wi-Fi
On the data side, Wi-Fi is certainly the key technology in education.
“Devices used for learning have steadily migrated from fixed
computers to mobile laptops and tablets, with the latter depending
entirely upon a Wi-Fi connection. Consequently we have seen
widespread uptake of Wi-Fi across UK educational facilities,” says
Lewis White, UK enterprise lead at CommScope, which acquired
leading Wi-Fi vendor Ruckus last year.
“However, the extent to which it is deployed varies massively,”
he continues. “This is in part due to budgets (or perception of
cost) and in part due to the physical nature of older buildings and
distributed campus locations.”
Simon Wilson, CTO EMEA at HPE Aruba, agrees. “We have
seen a significant increase in schools rolling out high-density Wi-Fi
networks. Take Stanley Park High School in Sutton, south London. It
realised that a good-quality Wi-Fi implementation takes IT out
of the IT suite, and the whole school becomes the IT suite. It
allows children to study anywhere across the estate. All you need
is a laptop.”
White says the main use of Wi-Fi in schools began with basic
teaching aids, moving to interactive learning and teaching using
connected smartboards. “In the school environment, connectivity
remains principally a connection to facilitate delivery of learning.
When we move to further and higher education, the nature of
the typical facility changes, as does the role of the user.”
College and university student expectations are
much higher these days and they want far more in
terms of connectivity, so Wi-Fi needs to be pervasive,
with no black spots, and with more capacity to cope
with all the data demands, according to Wilson.
“The ability to connect with family and friends, and
access online help with their courses, is important.
Students often have to submit and get work checked
electronically, so teaching sta can more easily check for
plagiarism. Wi-Fi is a major part of a student’s everyday
life in halls of residence where they are connecting
smartphones, laptops, tablets, gaming devices and other
kit,” he says.
White makes the point that modern university
buildings and campuses are also more than just learning
spaces. “They generate revenue through multiple
channels – increasingly through hosting conferences
and events. Attendees expect to have free access to
Wi-Fi, and the network has to accommodate sudden
increases in user density and demand.”
Network management
The education sector adopts a mix of network
infrastructure and management solutions. “The type
of network that supports the wireless infrastructure
does vary,” says Wilson. “Big universities like
Cambridge, Oxford or Manchester have fairly
complicated networks to support a wide variety of
applications and they have centralised IT functions
with their own in-house IT people. It is therefore
more like a large enterprise network that is deployed.
“Schools obviously implement much smaller, less
complex infrastructure and they may be supported
centrally by a local authority or multi-academy trust,
although the schools are not necessarily connected
together. We are having some success here with a
major focus around delivering zero-touch provisioning
and simplified management processes.”
White says the overwhelming trend for larger
schools and universities is towards the use of some
form of third-party managed service. “Distributed
buildings provide challenges. Luckily facilities today
are not entirely dependent upon a central network
backbone to connect every device. Distributed sites
and their access points can be managed remotely,
within the cloud, and a new generation of managed
service providers have emerged to take on the task of
“We have seen a significant
increase in schools
rolling out high-density
Wi-Fi networks”
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