The Project:
St James Boys’ School building sits within a picturesque and breathtaking 30 acre site. The Head Teacher, David Boddy, always had the vision of ensuring he had a “State of the Art” wireless network, both within the school buildings and across the external campus, to allow flexible learning and anytime access to the school network and internet services.
The school required a wireless network which would be able to support large numbers of wireless clients (in excess of 30 users in all classrooms), and both data and VoIP traffic across the entire campus including the 6th form areas, admin areas, various outbuildings, dormitories and external areas of the school. They needed reliability, quality of service and peace of mind that the product and service selected would meet all their requirements.
The security of the system was paramount but so too was the necessity for the wireless network to provide both VoIP support for the new school telephone system users, and data access for any other IP devices.
It was important that three wireless networks could be broadcast for the teachers, students, visitors and boarders at the school; namely a secure wireless network for general data connectivity, a guest network for all visitors to the school which would only allow secure connectivity to the internet gateway, and also a Voice over IP network which would provide a guaranteed (QoS) service for the roaming VoIP telephone handset users in all areas of the school.
Our Solution:
Simpli-Fi proposed the Aruba Managed Wireless solution after an extensive wireless survey of the Campus.
The system proposed and installed comprises a 3600 Aruba Controller, complete with licensing and a 128 Policy Enforcement Firewall License. 71 dual band Access points provide internal 802.11AC coverage, while a further seven access points provide external coverage with a mixture of high gain directional and omni-directional antenna.
St James Boys’ School selected the Simpli-Fi managed wireless service option which provides them with all the hardware, installed, commissioned and fully maintained with remote monitoring, performance guarantees and extended hardware warranties as part of a rolling 36 month Service Level Agreement Contract.
The Result:
“Having battled for years with insufficient and patchy wireless networks that were unable to cope with even a small system load, we have been given a new lease of life for a wireless network within the school. Simpli-Fi’s service is of the highest class, and we benefit from blanket coverage all over the site, with seamless transition between Aruba access points and high data speeds. The wireless service is so good that we are able to use our wireless phones on it without compromising on quality. The staff here rely on the Aruba wireless network for their teaching and as a school there was no question that Simpli-Fi offered the best solution for us. I would recommend them to anybody due to their unsurpassable customer service, top-quality product, and their friendly and helpful nature.”
David Atkinson – Network Manager, St James Senior Boys School
