Considerations for Deploying a Successful Network in Educational Environments

Laptops, tablets, personal computers (PCs), Artificial Intelligence (AI), mobile phones… the list goes on when it comes to the digital devices that are now used in and across classrooms and campuses.

Wireless technology has introduced a new era in education and, as a result, wireless networks are now an essential part of educational programming and administration. Careful investigation and planning are needed as IT teams charged with ensuring a reliable wireless network work to evaluate and select wireless infrastructure. This begins with an understanding of several key challenges or questions among both education leaders and IT teams administrating this infrastructure.

Plan a Network Deployment Using This List of Considerations to Start

• Diversity in environmental setting when working through the network design process:

• Where are Wi-Fi access points (APs) going to be deployed? Classrooms, libraries, laboratories, administration buildings, residence halls and auditoriums?
• Are these facilities and environments architecturally sensitive?
• What type of construction are they?
• Are they high-density areas?
• What about the need for wireless infrastructure security? Do you have a strategy?
• What type of budget do you have to work with?

It’s a lot to think about, but it’s critical to the process of ensuring a successful network deployment. And, it’s a simple fact that simultaneously satisfying all the criteria will challenge the network designer and installer to use every tool in the toolbox. Thankfully, there are readily available and intuitive Wi-Fi mounting solutions that can help.

Achieve a Successful Network Deployment: Consider Oberon’s In-Plane Wi-Fi Mounting Solutions

Wi-Fi APs and antennas, by their very nature, are highly visible. Oberon’s In-Plane 1040 and 1042 Wi-Fi mounting solutions help wireless designers and installers achieve these objectives, and offer:

• Performance: Preserve optimum, reliable wireless coverage throughout every type of facility and construction

• Flexibility: Mount Wi-Fi APs from all leading vendors, including Cisco®, Aruba®, Extreme® Networks and Meraki, and choose from a variety of interchangeable, snap-in trims
• Aesthetics: Designed like recess lighting fixtures, the In-Plane 1040 and 1042 blend aesthetically with indoor and outdoor environments; they recess the AP body into a suspended, panel or hard ceiling to reveal only the wireless side of the AP.
• Cost Savings: Implement an economical way to satisfy all of the above criteria and achieve objectives
• Security: Physically protect access points and associated cabling from theft, vandalism, tampering, accidental damage, and unauthorized moves and disconnects where necessary
• Convenience: Realize convenience of installation while preventing unauthorized access to the wireless access point

It’s important, as you plan for a network upgrade, to become familiar with potential requirements, policy implications and standards. Additionally, it’s critical that IT teams working in these facilities collaborate with educational leaders, and even the community, to ensure the wireless infrastructure selected meets goals and capabilities, and is essentially built into the organization’s wireless strategy and technology plan.

Learn more about the Oberon In-Plane 1040 and 1042 Wi-Fi mounting solutions product pages to learn more about what to consider and how to achieve your objectives as you work to deploy a successful wireless network.