Two neighbouring schools, Bordesley Green and Kingsbury School and Sports College, share ICT recommendations on implementing better wireless.

LONDON, England - October XX, 2008 –
Ruckus Wireless, a Wi-Fi technology pioneer in the enterprise wireless LAN market, today announced it has supplied Smart Wireless LAN products and technology to two schools in the same Local Authority (LA). The new Smart Wireless LAN systems provide reliable Wi-Fi coverage for all staff and pupils at the schools, supporting a myriad of mobile applications.

Bordesley Green Junior and Infants School was the first to deploy the Ruckus WLAN and impressed with the system recommended it to the nearby Kingsbury School and SportsCollege.
Bordesley Green Junior and Infants School is an age 3-11 mixed comprehensive in Birmingham, with just under 700 pupils. With teachers increasingly demanding wireless access for their laptops and other mobile devices, the school looked to install a robust WLAN that provided superior reliability and range. However, providing reliable Wi-Fi coverage throughout the whole school and all classrooms was particularly difficult since the school building is made up of a large number of smaller spaces with thick walls in between, and a playground situated in the centre. In such environments, consumer-grade routers (which the school had been using) and even some enterprise solutions struggle with signal penetration and reach, resulting in patchy and dropped connections.

After consulting with internet connectivity and security reseller Net-Ctrl, Bordesley Green considered solutions from Cisco and Ruckus Wireless. Cisco’s system was significantly above the school’s budget and also did not meet all of Bordesley Green’s requirements in rigorous performance tests. In contrast, the Ruckus solution was less than half the price and also fulfilled the school’s needs by being easy to configure with a low management overhead.
Bordesley Green therefore opted for the Ruckus ZoneFlex solution including ten 802.11n access points (APs), in order to provision for increased use and bandwidth hungryapplications in the future.

“We were amazed at the value of the Ruckus solution, especially given the robustness of the system. During testing, we introduced a number of interferences to the environment – including attempting to disrupt the Wi-Fi signals with microwave cookers – the Ruckus system was the only one able to deal with this by automatically adapting to environmental changes,” said Steven Long, IT manager at Bordesley Green.

 “Since its deployment, it has been running extremely well, providing staff with reliable wireless internet access for all their Wi-Fi enabled devices.”

Following the initial order, the equipment was delivered in advance of Net-Ctrl’s planned site visit and the school’s IT staff were able to set up the solution themselves, using the straightforward interface of the point-and-click web wizard. Bordesley Green was so impressed with the solution that it recommended the technology on the EduGeek website, a forum for ICT staff in schools. Kingsbury School and Sports College, situated less than four miles from the school, saw the forum posts and contacted the school about the technology.

Kingsbury School and Sports College, a mixed comprehensive in Birmingham for pupils aged 11 to 16, then visited Bordesley Green to see the Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi technology in action. Due to its easy installation and management, the IT manager at Bordesley Green was able to offer his school’s solution to Kingsbury School for a trial. Kingsbury was so pleased with it that the school also consulted Net-Ctrl and purchased the Ruckus solution, including 15 of its 802.11n APs and the ZoneFlex 1025 controller.
“We were surprised by how simply we were able to take the system offsite and set it up to trial. It really was plug-and-play and it runs seamlessly in the background with no problems,” said Ian Mitchell, ICT strategic manager at Kingsbury School. “Being able to test before we committed to buying our own Ruckus system really reinforced Bordesley Green’s recommendation and enabled us to make an informed buying decision.”

“We’re seeing a large increase in WLAN uptake in the education sector, as more and more schools realise the benefits that reliable Wi-Fi can bring,” said Mark Power, wireless security specialist at Net-Ctrl. “The Ruckus ZoneFlex is ideal for schools due to its ease of configuration and management, taking away the burden from often limited IT staff.”

“As school environments tend to have a large number of devices connecting and moving around, the Ruckus ZoneFlex’s ability to automatically adapt to changes makes it perfectly suited,” said Jim Calderbank, director of enterprise sales EMEA at Ruckus. “We’re delighted that schools are able to make purchasing decisions based on the ‘real’ experience of others in order to guarantee the quality and standard they demand.”

Net-Ctrl has an enviable track record in implementing School Wireless Networks which means that we can provide expertise relevant to your environment. Additionally Net-Ctrl is the first and only Gold Partner Reseller of Ruckus Wireless in the UK and Europe.