The University of Birmingham is overhauling and widening
itsWi-Fi network coverageto improve data
speeds and increase access to students.
Complete
Wi-Fi coverage will be provided by the end of 2008 at its main
250 hectare Edgbaston campus, the 80 hectare Selly Oak campus, and
at the affiliated Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon.
This will make it one of the largest deployments of
Wi-Fi within a UK university.
The university is using IronPoint Mobility Series access points
and controllers from Foundry Networks in the project.
John Turnbull, the University of Birmingham's head of networks
in the IT Services department, said, "Our Wi-Fi strategy is to
ensure staff, students and visitors to the university have the best
experience of using our network in the whole of UK academia.
"Given our policy is not to allow open network access, this
means straightforward registration and authentication with enough
capacity to ensure fast and extensive coverage."
To deliver this in a secure and easy-to-manage way, more than
300 IronPoint Mobility access points and two Foundry Mobility
Controllers have been installed, with the university taking full
advantage of the virtual cell technology capabilities included.
This means that the various access points in one geographical
area all use one channel, thereby allowing IT staff to engineer out
any frequency issues associated with other competing Wi-Fi enabled
devices, such as Wi-Fi alarm systems.
The project is being delivered by Foundry partner Pervasive
Networks.