Explain managed wifi to staff and governors

[cooper]

Hi

 

I have a large primary school that could do with getting a managed wifi solutions.

 

What would be the best way to explain to the staff and governors its a better solutions that just having a few stand alone access points over the school site.

 

Need to make it clear for all to understand as its one of those things that goes in unseen not like a large touch screen for example.

 

Thanks in advance for any help

[tmoon-mint]

* Reliability

* Performance

* Seamless roaming and load balancing

* ease of management (Therefore saving you time)

[CyberNerd]

Compare home wifi (10 devices) to airport wifi: hundreds of devices in close proximity all competing against each other for bandwidth.

[mikeprice]

I have managed to explain it to the Head by using the BT advert with Usain Bolt - that is supposed to be so wonderful but then you count the people - then compare it to a full class of kids in one small area

 

Oh - and when she was doing an on-line assessment that the gov insists on - she managed to pick a room on the edge of the wifi range so I blamed that on not having decent wifi as well!!

[synaesthesia]

Not entirely related, but look at Unifi for a primary. Will help soften the financial blow compared to the "big guys".

[strawberry]

I do this sort of thing using teacher speak.

1. Can I use all 30 ipads at the same time? - Yes, but it will be very slow.

2. Can I use this ipad in the school field?- No, The signal doesn't reach there.

3. Can my visitor have wireless access? - yes. Today, tomorrow and every other day they happen to park up in the car park.

4. We've been hacked, my password has changed. Who's been on our wifi- No idea, we don't have accounting.

5. We need a new wifi name , can we do it? - Yes, which wifi name do you want to replace?

6. I'm in the sportshall, connect my laptop - can't, don't have central management.

7. We are in lockdown, turn off the wifi - Ok, I'll just retrieve the asset list and find my keys.

[Oaktech]

You can also play the "What happens if our key is compromised?" game and point out that changing the key on a dozen standard access points and every device is going to massively impact T&L, implementing a managed solution and Radius would mean that danger went away all together.

[pcstru]

I have a large primary school that could do with getting a managed wifi solutions.

 

What would be the best way to explain to the staff and governors its a better solutions that just having a few stand alone access points over the school site.

If you have determined they "could do with getting" a managed solution, then the best way is to simply lay out your reasoning that led you to that conclusion. In our situation, the rationale was simple - we went from needing to support teachers with their individual laptops to supporting high density of devices in small areas (i.e. a couple of classes of 30 laptops each in a small area). It was then fairly easy to explain to TPTB, "you want to do X, you need Y". It is much more difficult if they are not asking for X but I want them to fund Y anyway! So the real question behind your question is - what do they actually want to do that is driving the change?

[cooper]

Thank you all very much for your advise it's very helpful.

 

Lets see what I can do

 

Cooper

[m25man]

Ubiquiti have just launched a controller on a stick "Unifi Cloud Key" - powered by PoE brilliant idea for schools that want a smaller slick installation.

https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-cloud-key/

[Net-Ctrl]

If you have a particular managed wireless solution in mind, check their website as they will have a breakdown of 'Why choose us', you could use these points to help build your own argument. Also, if you have a preferred reseller, engage with them, they'll certainly be able to help Best of luck with the project

[Wave9_Andy]

Drop me a note - we have a short white paper on considering investment in network that's generic in terms of vendor but may help you build your case with the SLT. Happy to e-mail it to you.

 

Regards

 

Andy

[sonofsanta]

Dumb wireless is like having a bunch of private tutors teaching a group of kids - they're going to clash on what they tell kids (interference), you've got to talk to them all individually if anything changes and it'd be impossible to organise anything (no central management), what one tutor teaches might not be compatible with another tutors curriculum (no roaming) and you've got no visibility over how good a job they're doing.

 

A managed system is like a school - everyone is organised (central management) and you can get a message out to the staff body easily, everyone is working together on the same curriculum which makes it easy to move between classes (roaming), and the service provided is ultimately much more professional and much less frustrating for the providers and recipients alike.

 

Cons: it's a bit of a stretched metaphor. Pros: it'll butter 'em up a treat.

[2097]

keep it simple

 

Not having a managed wireless solution means any one can have access ( including kids) without safeguarding and you will never be the wiser .

 

With a managed solution with e.g. Radius you can monitor everything, set limits and the cisco kit even has a built in webfilter.

 

We have started putting in Cisco Merakis everywhere. I love them !, Radius authentication that expires every 10 days so they have to relogin . I also rotate the guest accounts password for external users.