The Duston School deploy Meru education-grade wireless solution

LONDON, UK: Meru Networks has announced that The Duston School has deployed a Meru Education-grade (MEG) wireless solution to support its bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programme for sixth form students and its planned 1:1 Apple iPad implementation for all 1,400 pupils and 90 teaching staff.

The Northamptonshire-based academy has completed phase one of its iPad project in which it purchased 150 iPads for whole class use. The school is currently planning phase two, which will introduce a 1:1 iPad programme for all students.

"With so many mobile devices being deployed, and sixth formers already bringing in their own laptops and tablets, we needed a Wi-Fi set-up that could deliver scalable networking and fast performance," said Lucy Walshaw, ICT systems and delivery leader at The Duston School.

The Meru solution replaces the school's previous wireless network, which prompted regular complaints from staff about dropped connections and poor performance. In addition to density issues, the school's passive infrared (PIR) motion sensors also caused channel interference with the Wi-Fi, making Meru's single channel architecture the ideal solution.

The new wireless network will eventually support approximately 2,000 iPads for both staff and students in addition to the 500 pre-existing devices. The planned 1:1 learning programme, which could see 1,400 iPads go live simultaneously, is planned for the new academic year.

The Duston School network includes 48 Meru AP332 dual-radio, dual-band 802.11n WLAN access points, fitted throughout the school. The ‘Hub,' is one area where the school expects large numbers of users to be accessing the wireless network. This was recently put to the test when they conducted staff iPad training with 90 iPads in use simultaneously - without connectivity issues.

The school's solution is designed to support a variety of wireless technologies including Apple TV and iPads, as well as the sixth form students' personal devices through BYOD. For management and security purposes the school decided to separate their network using a variety of VLANs; this was part of the wireless network deployment, which was designed and implemented by Meru Gold Partner, Switchshop.

Meru's Education-grade (MEG) wireless solution is designed to solve educational institutions' BYOD (bring your own device) issues and support their learning-essential applications. MEG starts with three simple steps:

1. On-board quickly with BYOD provisioning and secure wireless access mapped to IT policies.

2. Connect all BYOD devices reliably anywhere on campus.

3. Learn by deploying validated learning and teaching applications on BYOD devices over the MEG wireless solution.