We just finished rolling out wifi to all dorms. Each dorm is uniquely different in terms of age and/or construction materials. I used a variety of tools to determine placement of ap's. However, the first thing I did was place one or two AP's in area's that I thought would be strategic. I used Air Magnet to determine if the heat map would provide adequate coverage. I did a total of 16 dorms like this and ended up adding 12 additional AP's in area's that had little coverage. We installed a total of 424 Ap's and we added 12 more, not bad.
That said, I still have a small percentage of users with 'wire only' devices. Not to mention the game consoles that are still wire only. That said, we will be building a new dorm next year. I plan on wifi only but will include wired ports as well. Granted, not the "port per pillow" we have been use to, but maybe "port per room". I haven't made a decision yet. Wireless is still half duplex and the best I can get out of 802.11n is 300mps. So, applications like IPTV, Digital Signage still require a wire. Not to mentioned fire alarms, HVAC. Phones, emergency notification...all things that we need to run a building, still require a wire. I have had as many as 20 clients on one AP, with no issues. However, as more bandwidth intensive apps are available (not to mention the increase in devices), I suspect I will have to limit this. So far, there has not been a need. I hope this is helpful to you! Russ Gordon College r...@gordon.edu From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Laird, Sara M Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 1:05 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless only dorms, advice? Hello, I am looking for anyone who has moved to wireless only dorms. We have fast track dorm construction project that is starting and our CIO would like to make it wireless only. I am wondering if anyone has done this and if so what kind of advice or comments can you share. We will be using Cisco waps. Also I am wondering what kind of ratio you based your access points on, how many devises per person. Best Regards, Sara Sara M. Laird Network Administrator Mount Saint Mary's University 301.447.5014 Faith * Discovery * Leadership * Community ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
