wireless advice

[Aaron]

Hi everyone

 

i was hoping for some advice on something that I would like to look at, I was wondering what i need to do to allow wireless around our school on all floors for staff to move anywhere in the school and always have access to the network. Also I would like to possibly look at allow our students access to the internet not any access to our school domain but just internet access possibly by using there authentication details if this was possible.

 

What i am really asking is how could I get started with this what sort of costs would we be talking about have other schools done this before?

 

Any advice on this would be much appreciated.

[EduTech]

Hi Aaron,

 

If you have a look around the forum you will see loads of discussions of this in the past which should be able to help you out.

 

My recommendation would be for you to talk to a company called "NET-CTRL" whom are sponsors of this forum but more importantly are very very good at what they do in the wireless area of work. (RUCKUS is very popular for the Education Sector because it's nice on the back pocket but is very robust and works flawlessly).

 

Message "Aggy" or/ MarkP on the forums and i am sure they will be happy to discuss this further with you!

 

and do have a look around, there plenty of information on here:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/networks/

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/networks/69311-aruba-meru-ruckus.html

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/recommended-suppliers/65086-thanks-net-ctrl-ruckus-wireless.html

 

Regards,

 

James.

[Aaron]

thank you very much James for the reply i know i should have been looking around the forum before posting but thank you for getting back to me with the info

[GrumbleDook]

I've just commissioned a paper on this (won't be out until the end of March though) but there are a few things you need to think about.

 

1 - The type of technology / kit / implementation you use. This is looking at the kit, how well it performs in your environment, what is most effective on coverage and how well it is supported. http://www.edugeek.net/attachments/forums/our-advertisers/5664d1265542186-ruckus-quote-please-wireless-research.docx gives you some idea on this and is a crackin' report to get you going ... remembering that it will differ from school to school and as new kit becomes available.

2 - What do you want the kit to do? This is looking at whether you want multiple networks ... a guest / student network and a secure staff / curriculum network (or several variations of this), whether you want any cross-over of traffic between the guest network and the main school network (such things as accessing home areas, or maybe even terminal servers), whether you want 'Net access filtered, logged or just straight out, etc

3 - How will it be used to change the T&L? have a look at whether mean to change how lessons run ... introducing kit owned by students or kit not managed by the school is a big move, not just technically, but with how staff and students make the most of it.

 

That's your starter for 10 ... Fraser Speirs - Blog can help you with some of Q3 and there are plenty of folk who have tried different bits for Q 1 and 2 on here.

 

Good luck with it ... keep us all informed how things go.

[reggiep]

We had Ruckus installed last year by CP Ltd who you will find on here somewhere, that's right isn't it Chris . The Ruckus system itself has been excellent with none of the usual problems I have had in the past with wireless. It was suprisingly cheap for what we bought, coverage for the whole school with one controller and 19 access points. It has made a massive difference to what we can achieve in the school. As I said CP installed it and the installers were nice chaps who knew exactly what they were doing.

[TheMinister]

Our site has just moved from Ruckus to Xirrus. The ruckus was just not enough to handle the high density that we required. We had 129 Ruckus access points to cover the site, which was reduced to just 30 Xirrus access points. Xirrus was comparable in price but it allowed a huge increase in node density.