Maryland School Bumps WiFi to 802.11n
In an effort to provide support for a wide range of technology initiatives, Norwood School in Maryland has deployed an 802.11n WiFi network across its 40-acre campus.
The new system, from Aruba Networks, is designed to support tablet computers, wireless projectors, and other classroom technologies. It's also being used by students and guests for Internet access, for which the school is using Aruba's ICSA-certified policy-enforcement firewall.
“Norwood is committed to educational innovation, and our technology program plays a central role in that goal,” said David Rossell, administrator of network services and planning, in a prepared statement. “Arguably the most important part of our technical system is the wireless network. For these initiatives to be effective, the Wi-Fi network must support our bandwidth-intensive projector and file system use and work with densely-deployed clients in classrooms. And it has to work flawlessly all the time every time. What impressed us most about Aruba’s system is that it just worked out of the box. We spent almost a year trying to make a competitor’s deployment work in our environment, only to see the network fail again and again when traffic spiked at the beginning of class periods. Aruba’s network handled the load effortlessly."
Norwood School is an independent K-8 school that serves 528 students and employs 120 faculty and staff.