Allegany County Deploys WiFi District-wide
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Allegany County Public Schools in Maryland recently announced the deployment of Meru wireless LANs throughout the 22-school district, designed to support more than 10,000 students, faculty, and staff.
The system, which was completed back in February, includes more than 300 fixed and 50 mobile wireless access points, providing wireless access to the district's full suite of online tools. The district has also tied their inventory system into the network, providing immediate access to wireless devices as soon as they have been "bar-coded into the system."
According to the district, Meru was selected from a pool of more than a dozen solution providers.
"What really separated Meru from the pack was its single-channel approach and the strength of its management system," said Jeffrey Blank, supervisor of networking for the district, in a prepared statement. "The single-channel architecture meant there was minimal channel planning to worry about, which was particularly important to us. After all, how do you do channel planning when you have roaming access points? Furthermore, it was mandatory that WLAN management and control be centralized and unified. Only Meru was able to do that for us."
Equipment used in the Allegany deployment includes AP208 dual-radio 802.11a/b/g access points, RS4000 quad-radio 802.11a/b/g radio switches, and MC5000 series controllers.
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Chris Riedel is a freelance writer based in Illinois. He can be reached here.