Networking for residential students?

[E_G_R2]

Question for those of you in boarding schools or colleges with accommodation.

 

Do you have wired connections in student rooms or just WiFi.

 

If you have wired how do you stop those pupils from maxing out your bandwidth streaming media and downloading files (if you allow that sort of thing)

 

If you have both do you set a cut of time at night and if so how do you implement this on the wired connections.

 

Do you guarantee service levels or just see it as an additional perk.

 

I’d be much obliged for any answers to the above or any additional comments about network access for boarding students.

[RobD]

Used to use SonicWall to bandwidth throttle for certain subnets in the day (i.e. boarding houses were on a separate vlan) and used to use Lightspeed to limit access to the internet. Worked really well.

[FN-GM]

Question for those of you in boarding schools or colleges with accommodation.

 

Do you have wired connections in student rooms or just WiFi.

 

If you have wired how do you stop those pupils from maxing out your bandwidth streaming media and downloading files (if you allow that sort of thing)

 

If you have both do you set a cut of time at night and if so how do you implement this on the wired connections.

 

Do you guarantee service levels or just see it as an additional perk.

 

I’d be much obliged for any answers to the above or any additional comments about network access for boarding students.

 

If you have Cisco you can

 

1. limit the bandwidth on the port

2. Use private vlans so they can't connect to each others computers.

 

You can use cron to automatically disable and enable ports.

 

You could also bandwidth limit on the proxy server if you have one.

[Chris_]

Boarding school here...

 

Before I joined the school there was no wifi, and each bed had a network socket for pupil laptops.

 

We've installed a Ubiquiti UniFi wifi network now and unpatched the old sockets. Connections are limited to 7mbps via the UniFi controller. Timed internet is controlled via AD group membership and time slots on our Smoothwall (timed access was on the wired connections previously also).

[E_G_R2]

If you have Cisco you can

 

1. limit the bandwidth on the port

2. Use private vlans so they can't connect to each others computers.

 

You can use cron to automatically disable and enable ports.

 

You could also bandwidth limit on the proxy server if you have one.

 

No CISCO, HP PRocurve and other HP

 

Apparently they have tried limiting bandwidth on ports before but we now have a larger connection (100 as opposed to 20) so that may help.

 

CRON - will investigate.

[E_G_R2]

Boarding school here...

 

Before I joined the school there was no wifi, and each bed had a network socket for pupil laptops.

 

We've installed a Ubiquiti UniFi wifi network now and unpatched the old sockets. Connections are limited to 7mbps via the UniFi controller. Timed internet is controlled via AD group membership and time slots on our Smoothwall (timed access was on the wired connections previously also).

 

We use Ruckus but find that evenings/weekends the kids complain of slow connection etc..

 

Some of it is down to where they are, AP's dropping coverage when its busy so if they are in an end room they loose signal.

 

I was thinking of fixed ethernet for laptops/PC's (not that they have PC's) to take the strain off the Wireless.

 

We have times set for the wireless but if I had fixed as well I would need to limit these.

 

Does your school offer a service level or do you just advertise it as a add on?

[Chris_]

We use Ruckus but find that evenings/weekends the kids complain of slow connection etc..

 

Some of it is down to where they are, AP's dropping coverage when its busy so if they are in an end room they loose signal.

 

I was thinking of fixed ethernet for laptops/PC's (not that they have PC's) to take the strain off the Wireless.

 

We have times set for the wireless but if I had fixed as well I would need to limit these.

 

Does your school offer a service level or do you just advertise it as a add on?

 

We do find that we are limited on bandwidth. We have a 100mb leased line currently but as we speak Virgin Media are in the process of digging up the road to install our new 1gb pipe.

 

We don't offer any service level. We might not even advertise that there's wifi in the boarding accomodation. I think people just expect that there will be wifi available, it is 2016 after all...

[Sagima]

We have WiFi for our 50 boarders and a small IT Suite (11 computers) in the boarding housefor them to work in with wired connections.

We use five Ruckus R710s to cover everyone without complaint (the five 7363s we had before weren't quite good enough)

WiFi is cut off at 11pm. It used to be different times for different years when I started but they just shared logins - most of the boarders are years 9+

They are guaranteed nothing but every room should have enough wifi to skype their parents. Filtering is very similar to in school with just social media and video streaming released for them.

There is no out of hours IT support - problems get sorted the next working day.

We don't limit their bandwidth - so far it hasn't caused us any issues (load balanced 2x100meg internet connection)

[E_G_R2]

We do find that we are limited on bandwidth. We have a 100mb leased line currently but as we speak Virgin Media are in the process of digging up the road to install our new 1gb pipe.

 

We don't offer any service level. We might not even advertise that there's wifi in the boarding accomodation. I think people just expect that there will be wifi available, it is 2016 after all...

 

So it is but then a parent got a bit miffed when daisy couldn't get the same level of service she gets at home.

 

We don't advertise it as a service level but it dosn't stop the moaning and groaning

[E_G_R2]

We have WiFi for our 50 boarders and a small IT Suite (11 computers) in the boarding housefor them to work in with wired connections.

We use five Ruckus R710s to cover everyone without complaint (the five 7363s we had before weren't quite good enough)

WiFi is cut off at 11pm. It used to be different times for different years when I started but they just shared logins - most of the boarders are years 9+

They are guaranteed nothing but every room should have enough wifi to skype their parents. Filtering is very similar to in school with just social media and video streaming released for them.

There is no out of hours IT support - problems get sorted the next working day.

We don't limit their bandwidth - so far it hasn't caused us any issues (load balanced 2x100meg internet connection)

 

OK AP upgrade could be one answer as have a mix of 7363 (end of line) and R600. 300 boarders all wanting to stream media, Skype home and otherwise hammer the internet.