Warren Park Primary School has deployed an 802.11g WLAN solution from Meru Networks to provide flexible and quick networking for its pupils, maximising teaching time and saving time for staff. The solution was supplied by IT specialist Agile IT and Meru distributor Siracom.
The school, in Havant, Hampshire, has installed Meru’s 1015 Controller and multiple Meru AP201 access points to enable its 420 pupils aged 4 to 11 to have seamless wireless access to the Internet from their classrooms.
The Meru solution was chosen as it overcame the problems encountered with the school’s previous WiFi equipment, such as wireless channel conflicts, poor response in wireless classrooms where a high number of users connect simultaneously to an access point, and having to frequently reboot access points when the network signal was lost.
Lee Combes, ICT manager for Warren Park Primary School, said: “The new Meru solution has, so far, been absolutely fantastic. Not only has it enabled us to get a full classroom of 30 online at once without disruption, but it has saved me a great deal of time as I no longer have had to run around rebooting the access points every morning. And if at any point I do need to do any system management I can do it from my desk - which is a lot easier and less time consuming, allowing me to spend more time on other important tasks. “We chose Meru’s system over competitors’ as it was cost-effective and met all our specific requirements; it was the best solution for us. Siracom were very helpful in ensuring the equipment was all set to work and the system has been extremely easy to set up as it virtually configures itself and there haven’t
been any problems to date. Even after the long Easter break, where the old system would have needed rebooting, the Meru system has continued to run seamlessly.”
Meru's wireless technology allows all access points to use the same channel. This eliminates channel interference and the need for channel planning, significantly simplifying planning and deployment of the network. The technology also enables highly efficient contention and even distribution of bandwidth between clients. This ensures that whole classes of users can
work at the same time without degradation of performance, and significantlyreduces log-in times; in some installations by a factor of ten.
In addition, laptop synchronisation with back-end servers previously caused network congestion, prevented other users from logging on and working. With Meru this is no longer an issue: every user is able to logon and synchronise without compromising other people’s ability to work. The Meru solution, which was deployed at the end of March, is currently being introduced to the school’s pupils in stages. Warren Park is looking to get all 420 pupils wirelessly enabled with the new solution in the coming months.
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