Lamar County School District Upgrades to 802.11ac Wi-Fi
Lamar County School
District (LCSD) in Mississippi has implemented 802.11ac wireless network
infrastructure throughout its schools and auxiliary buildings to support its
expanding 1-to-1 technology initiative, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiative
and integration with Google
Classroom.
LCSD serves 10,000 students and employs 1,300 faculty and staff members. As
more students and teachers began bringing their smartphones, tablets and
laptops onto campus, the district's 7-year-old legacy wireless network couldn't
support the density of devices. The district has also begun implementing a
1-to-1 initiative, which currently includes more than 1,300 Chromebooks and 500
iPads for classroom use and places even greater demands on the wireless network
infrastructure.
IT administrators at the district recognized the need to upgrade their Wi-Fi
infrastructure to support the expanding number of devices. After reviewing
solutions from numerous networking vendors, they selected an Aerohive
controller-less system with Aerohive AP230
access points, which can provide "aggregate data rates up to 1,300 Mbps in 5-GHz
band," according to information on the company's site.
The district also implemented Aerohive's Social
Login and HiveManager
Online tools. Social Login lets students use their Google account to
authenticate themselves on the school network, so they don't have to login
separately on each one, and HiveManager Online lets IT staff manage the network
from a centralized location.
The district uses Google Classroom extensively in all of its schools, and
according to information from Aerohive, the faster, denser Wi-Fi network
provides students and teachers with more reliable access to this and other
online educational resources. Faculty and staff are also using the network to
access software for grades, attendance, teacher evaluations and student
registration.
Lamar County School District is the fastest-growing district in the state,
and IT administrators anticipate that the upgraded network infrastructure will
be able to support the growing number of students and devices.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].