For the longest time we have done all of our design and implementation work in-house. Last year we decided to hire consultants for some of our high-density deployments because we were really short-staffed. One group of consultants was horrible, the other did well and provided good results.
Working with anybody that is not familiar with your network and your campus is going to require some babysitting and this can be better spent with your own people. I do have to agree that all of our needs are different, and consultants can have their place and can provide value. If you do decide to use a consultant, make super sure that you have a proper Statement of Work that covers all expectations and details of what the end result will be. This is crucial for a successful engagement. I personally would much rather spend my money on the right tools, and on my staff, than to give that money to someone else. In the process, you provide continuous training, you get a chance to have those intimate details of areas you will be serving and the end product you will be delivering. Regards, Hector Rios Louisiana State University -----Original Message----- From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Jerry Bucklaew Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 11:54 AM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] RFP question Colleagues, We are starting an initiative to upgrade our Wi-Fi infrastructure. Our current infrastructure was built in-house incrementally over the past several years. It is 802.n based and not as dense as we would like so we are looking at moving to 802.11ac with a significant increase in AP/antenna density to reduce the number of devices associating with each AP and improve performance. We are currently working on a RFP for hardware and figured we would do the engineering layout, installation and configuration in-house. We had a review meeting with a consultant who indicated that most Universities do not do the Wi-Fi engineering work in house and usually put the design in the RFP. This has led us to question whether we are following best practices for design engineering. We suspect that this may also depend on the size of the institution and the network staff. While I’m sure that we could achieve a more optimal initial coverage plan by hiring someone to do a more detailed analysis of building materials and RF propagation characteristics, I’m wondering if the additional time and expense derives a net benefit over doing the design in house. So we figured we’d post this to our peers and try to evaluate what the rest of you have experienced, or are planning. We have developed a short survey (9 questions) to assess the design approach and a couple other parameters. It should only take about 5 minutes to fill out, and as always the more participants, the better the results. You can access this survey at http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/8727g57943 We would appreciate your participation in the survey. I will leave it up for a week and then post the results back to the list for all to see. I will segment them into large schools and small schools as I suspect there might be a difference there. I can segment it different ways if people want to see it. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
