On Jun 14, 2007, at 1:34 PM, Kevin Whitney wrote:
Any thoughts or advice on implementing/selecting a wireless system for use in a High School environment ?
Hi Kevin, In talking to IT staff from K-12's at our (WiscNet's) last conference, one interesting thing I found was that technology has to work "on the first try". For example, a demo or document sharing done via wireless when it's not working or too slow can severely interrupt a lesson plan, and most teachers will only tolerate their lesson plans being burnt once or twice. The point that was hammered over and over was professionaly done design (usually outsourced for K-12's) site surveys done before and after installation. A large part of that design process, as others have mentioned is planning upfront for user density. A few classrooms back to back covered by only a few AP's may not work under load. For pros & cons on central controller vs "fat" AP's, you should hands down go with a central controller unless you are a programmer willing to write tools to monitor and automate tasks and your labor doesn't figure into the real "cost" of the wireless install. You will still probably want to use a controller later anyway, as that's the only place where new feature development is really occurring. Dale University of Wisconsin & WiscNet ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
