WiFi lacking in Schools

[fiza]

Interesting article ;

BBC News - School wi-fi 'not fit for 21st Century learning'

No talk of the implications of BYOD

[Gibson335]

It's as if wi-fi in and of itself is enough to provide this utopia...ideally this would have explored in equal measure the cost and other implications of the devices used as well. It's more of a prolonged soundbite than an article.

[localzuk]

Wifi is a great addition to a good network. But it has to be attached to a good network in the first place - putting it in without a good network to support it is pointless.

I've been to plenty of primary schools where they have no onsite IT provision and their IT is provided on a 'is it cheap? buy it' basis. This means that often, their switch gear is unmanaged, 100Mbit maximum anywhere, even at the server. 10Mbit internet maximum etc...

If you slap a decent wireless system in there, and start using devices on it, you're just asking for issues when you hit a bump in the old creaking equipment.

So, wireless is a lot more expensive than that, as you'd need to update switches and servers first.

Not to mention, you then need staff to use it and innovate with it, which in a lot of cases simply isn't going to happen. Many schools can't afford to buy these mobile devices that everyone is going on about at the moment.

[Gibson335]

Wifi is a great addition to a good network. But it has to be attached to a good network in the first place - putting it in without a good network to support it is pointless.

I've been to plenty of primary schools where they have no onsite IT provision and their IT is provided on a 'is it cheap? buy it' basis. This means that often, their switch gear is unmanaged, 100Mbit maximum anywhere, even at the server. 10Mbit internet maximum etc...

If you slap a decent wireless system in there, and start using devices on it, you're just asking for issues when you hit a bump in the old creaking equipment.

So, wireless is a lot more expensive than that, as you'd need to update switches and servers first.

Not to mention, you then need staff to use it and innovate with it, which in a lot of cases simply isn't going to happen. Many schools can't afford to buy these mobile devices that everyone is going on about at the moment.

Agreed. A lot of people don't realise that a wi-fi network relies on a cabled network at its core, that you have to consider issues such as power to the APs (so direct power, POE injectors, even POE switches), capacity on existing infrastructure, improving infrastructure, before you even get started on the devices...it's not that most of us wouldn't like it, we just have to make sure the decision makers are aware of the implications.

[CamelMan]

It's as if wi-fi in and of itself is enough to provide this utopia...ideally this would have explored in equal measure the cost and other implications of the devices used as well. It's more of a prolonged soundbite than an article.

Wifi + IPads = answer to all educational issues.

Apparently......

Good point by OP - so you stick £15,000 worth of wireless infrastructure in - then what? What about all the wireless equipment for the students to embrace their "digital learning", BYOD infrastructure and policies.

A carefully planned and managed steady introduction of integration of IT into all levels of education as well as training and additional funding to support existing and future developments? Nah cut the funding then tell them all they just need more wireless everywhere.

Wifi is great - but IMHO not as vital as people seem to see (as in you don't need it to teach - better equipment and teacher embracing of current tech would be as benificial for students. Some of our teachers think its magic when you show them how to freeze a projector for crying out loud)

[m25man]

"It's expensive, at about £15,000 to connect a primary school with 500 pupils and up to £50,000 for a large comprehensive"

Good old Xirrus again fanning the flames, when are these so called experts going to wake up and realise that many schools barely have enough cash to keep the boilers running through winter and fix the leaking classroom roof!

Makes me laugh.

[Tallwood_6]

Xirrus and Meru just happen to be commercial partners of the "e-learning foundation" who conducted the survey, need you say more really.

[timbo343]

"It's expensive, at about £15,000 to connect a primary school with 500 pupils and up to £50,000 for a large comprehensive"

Good old Xirrus again fanning the flames, when are these so called experts going to wake up and realise that many schools barely have enough cash to keep the boilers running through winter and fix the leaking classroom roof!

Makes me laugh.

A teacher posted this link to me saying see you're ahead and i kinda bit back with a right rant at the fact its all about money at the end of the day, if you havent got the money it cannot be done.
I dont think they were too impressed, however its the truth.

I also noticed the article mentioned xirrus, they quoted £40,000 for whole school, meru £54,000 so we started the ball rolling with ruckus phased in with 2 controllers, 6 APs from @CPLTD about £2250. I also said that its a fad at the moment.

[denon101]

I went with a Ruckus system in the end. It was after a lot of research and testing. Also the costs of £15000 seem a lot to me. Our entire setup which is a single controller and 12ap's only cost at most £5-6k. (including dual band ap's) This has provided us with wireless across the site. Including to the bottom of the school field some 200 meters away. It can be done, but must be thought out, planned and funded properly. It was also done in stages a few areas at a time. This helped us finance the project.

[localzuk]

Those prices sound about right for most commercial providers, when you put installation in too. Our self installed Ruckus cost us a lot less than that though. Schools just have to shop wisely.

[john]

Full agreed with @localzuk these reports are biased and a bit of a scaremongering. A good BYOD setup costs a lot of money and time for hardware for infrastructure, training, support and getting it all right.

Our place was a bit of want BYOD, I was it needs to be secure X Y and Z have to happen first which took time to sort and even more money, we have done it in the end as part of major refresh of our IT Infrastructure as this was a key feature of it but that wasn't a cheap setup by any stretch of the means but the excellent work we have done with @Net-Ctrl for both Ruckus and Juniper has ensured we achieved our goals and working with Smoothwall on the filtering side has given us an excellent BYOD setup and our Sixth Form are befitting from it.

[truebluesteve]

The report was commissioned by besa who want us to buy their members equipment so the report isn't entirely surprising in its findings. I would ask the following questions -

1. The report mentions wireless in classrooms. Do they mean wireless availability in classrooms or an AP in each classroom. I suspect its the latter, and if so its a very disingenuous question because we all know that you don't need it.

2. What are they going to use the Wi-Fi for. As someone said earlier, it's seems to be that lots of people think that iPads and Wireless are some sort of panacea for education. Without a teaching and learning strategy to go with all this expensive equipment they become a white elephant.

We put our wireless network in 5 years ago and it has served us very well, but its not really up the whole BYOD thing, so we are in the process of looking at upgrading it. However we are in the fortunate position of being able to afford to do this, but many schools aren't.

[psydii]

An AP in every classroom is like flood wiring CAT5e 10 years ago. If you can afford it, do it.... however with careful design and management (unique to each school, and the aspirations and expectations of its staff and students) you can get away with nearly 50% less in many cases, for the moment.

Wireless is the future and far far too many schools have really poor wifi. It is shocking. It is often the poor wireless that causes the existing mobile kit to go unused. What is really depressing though is some schools have spent an awful lot on their wireless and it still doesn't meet their day to day needs, let alone their aspirations.

£50K to a large secondary is peanuts, if wireless is strategically important then good wifi installation can be funded. That said for £50K I'd expect to see a properly implemented, 802.11x, BYOD and Guest Captive Portal, with secured VLANs and QoS with -60dB in 2.4 and 5Ghz across the site from a minimum of two APs per location, with at least 5 years technical support included.

[staningrimsby]

Why just make do though at a cost of less than £10K for a Ruckus controller and 25 ap's thats enough for one in each classroom and still a couple
to scatter elsewhere its false economy in my opinion not to put one in each classroom at that price.

[psydii]

Because there is more to building a high density wireless network than having a high density of APs

and 25 classrooms is a small school... scaling that pricing up to a largish secondary, you are still looking at 35-40K including design and installation, assuming you don't need any additional switch/vlan work done.