Wireless vs. Tablets

[Gongalong]

Hi folks,

 

We bought 15 LearnPads a few months ago, and I finally had time today to witness trying a lesson with them - and it was pretty dreadful. The students were all trying to login to our Internet based VLE.

 

I don't think the LearnPads were at fault per se. There was an HP V-M200 in the next room, so I'm guessing that was giving around 30-40Mb/s in the next room, then divided by 15 tablets, along with the other various overheads = unusably slow.

 

We are planning to replace our piecemeal system with Ruckus, but what is the reality of this? Are we going to need two APs per classroom? (Seems near impossible with channel issues) Would Ruckus perform much better than the HP AP? Will it only be possible to have a few tablets in use at any one time?

 

Very interested to know how others have got over this hurdle, if at all.

 

TIA

[tj2419]

Hi

 

We replaced an ageing 3com wireless network with 78 AP's in the summer with a new ruckus wireless network with 27 AP's covering the school. Has been working brilliantly. We even had 120 devices in our main school hall (45 iPads and the rest laptops) all working fine the AP maxed out connections at 100 devices but the rest just connected to other AP's near by.

 

Overall very impressed with ruckus.

[FragglePete]

I just did an install before Christmas for one of our feeder schools. They brought a whole bunch of LearnPads and they just wouldn't work with the myriad of APs they had in place. I put in Six Ruckus AP's with a ZoneDirector 1100 (one of the bundle deals Ruckus had going at the time) and a HP PoE Switch for them and I'm hearing nothing but good things now. It was done as a favour for them as they pleaded for my help. Did it over a few afternoons and just wandered around with my laptop to ensure good coverage in all classrooms, struggled a bit as the physical network was a complete mess. The Head at my school made a point of pulling me aside and passed on the thanks from the Head of the primary for getting something working for them.

 

Pete

[Gongalong]

Thanks, that's reassuring.

 

FragglePete: did you just have one AP covering a classroom, or go for more than one? My worry is that with the current AP locations we typically only have one covering a classroom. Is that going to be enough?

[FragglePete]

Thanks, that's reassuring.

 

FragglePete: did you just have one AP covering a classroom, or go for more than one? My worry is that with the current AP locations we typically only have one covering a classroom. Is that going to be enough?

 

Due to layout of the school, network point locations, thick walls in some places and just partition walls in others, etc, in some cases I had one AP covering at least two or three classrooms. However, when I did the final survey in pretty much every room there was at least two APs visible at all times with semi-decent signal. The APs on the 1st floor penetrated the floorboards down to the ground floor quite well in some cases. It really was down to crafty positioning.

 

Pete

[difinity]

The Ruckus kit works best when plugged into 1Gbit sockets on the switch rather than 100Mbit. As above they will quite happily handle 15 tablets.