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| [October 27, 2008] |
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Allegany County, MD, Schools Deploy Meru Wireless LANs District-Wide to Support Mobile Applications
SUNNYVALE, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- The Allegany County Public Schools in western Maryland have selected wireless LANs from Meru Networks to support mobile applications and deliver wireless networking to the district's more than 10,000 students, faculty and staff. Meru's single-channel virtual-cell architecture and superior management capability were cited as the reasons it won out over a dozen other WLAN vendors.
The district-wide Meru wireless deployment, completed in February, was the culmination of a two-year project to upgrade the network infrastructure across all 22 schools - a total of 26 buildings - in Allegany County. Consisting of more than 300 fixed and 50 mobile wireless access points and two high-end controllers, the wireless network will allow access to online learning tools such as Safari Montage, thousands of educational videos, and online administrative systems.
Meru was chosen over 12 other vendors following a comprehensive evaluation of wireless products, according to Jeffrey Blank, supervisor of networking for the district. The Meru WLAN was purchased through Fusion Network Systems, a Columbia, Md., network and infrastructure solutions provider.
"While our first priority was to build for full wireless coverage," Blank said, "we also wanted a system robust enough to also give us added capacity when we needed it without purchasing additional equipment - for example, to support large numbers of students concurrently accessing web-based courses in different locations. With Meru we could strategically install fixed access points and also mount radio switches on mobile laptop carts. Teachers and administrators can carry their laptops anywhere and get access, and at the same time we have extra localized capacity as needed in high-density classroom situations.
"What really separated Meru from the pack was its single-channel approach and the strength of its management system," he added. "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."
Blank has tied the district's in-house inventory system into the Meru WLAN using a RADIUS server for device authorization; as soon as a new wireless device (e.g., laptop computer, telephone) is bar-coded into the system, it is automatically authorized as a wireless network participant. Blank also liked a Meru bridging option which allows most user traffic, such as web browsing, access to data and applications, and printer requests, to be handled locally and not pass through the controller, thus conserving WAN bandwidth by reducing traffic between access points and controllers.
Meru equipment deployed in the Allegany County Public Schools network includes AP208 dual-radio 802.11a/b/g access points, RS4000 quad-radio 802.11a/b/g radio switches, and MC5000 series controllers, which support up to 1,000 access points each and deliver intelligent contention management for high-density wireless environments.
Meru's virtual-cell, single-channel wireless architecture minimizes WLAN interference by providing one wireless channel for use enterprise-wide and layering additional channels over that channel when more capacity is required. The reliability of wireless connections is maximized independent of client type, and zero-latency roaming is enabled by the elimination of call "handoffs" between APs when clients roam from one AP to another. In contrast, legacy systems use a "micro cell" approach, which assigns different channels to adjacent AP cells, requiring precise and time-consuming channel planning and AP power adjustments, making it difficult to load-balance in dense environments, and limiting future network expansion.
About Allegany County Public Schools
Allegany County, located in Western Maryland and with a population of 73,700, is home to 14 public elementary schools, four public middle schools, three public high schools, one technical school and one alternative school. All 22 schools are staffed by highly qualified teachers. For more information, visit www.boe.allconet.org.
About Meru Networks
Meru Networks develops and markets wireless infrastructure solutions that enable the All-Wireless Enterprise. Its industry-leading innovations deliver pervasive, wireless service fidelity for business-critical applications to major Fortune 500 enterprises, universities, healthcare organizations and local, state and federal government agencies. Meru's award-winning Air Traffic Control technology brings the benefits of the cellular world to the wireless LAN environment, and its WLAN System is the only solution on the market that delivers predictable bandwidth and over-the-air quality of service with the reliability, scalability and security necessary to deliver converged voice and data services over a single WLAN infrastructure. Founded in 2002, Meru is based in Sunnyvale, Calif. For more information, visit www.merunetworks.com or call (408) 215-5300.
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