Douglas County School District Selects Ruckus Wireless for Next Gen 802.11n Wi-Fi Infrastructure Across 12-School System

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Ruckus Wireless™, the smart mobile internetworking company, today announced that the Douglas County School District (DCSD) in Nevada selected Ruckus to provide advanced "Smart Wi-Fi" products and technology for campus-wide 802.11n networks at its 12 K-12 schools and two administrative offices.

"Like many schools across this country, wireless is no longer just an option, it's a necessity," said Eric Ristine, IT Director at Douglas County School District. "The problem was finding a wireless system that could cope with constant changes in the RF environment, provide ubiquitous signal coverage and consistent performance while maintaining stable connectivity to clients. In short, that's what we needed and that's what the Ruckus Wi-Fi system does."

According to DCSD, the primary driver for wireless was to enable a mobile solution within its schools for implementing state-mandated MAP (Measured Achievement Progress) testing. Beyond that, DCSD wanted to use the network to support voice, video-on-demand, electronic whiteboard and emerging iPhone/smart phone applications.

"We completely underestimated the power of combining dynamic beamforming and 802.11n," said Ristine. "Because beamforming provides a much more reliable wireless infrastructure and 802.11n gives us much higher data rates, we are now in a position to throw anything and everything on the wireless network – from IP-based voice to video on demand."

DCSD chose the Ruckus ZoneFlex Smart Wireless LAN (WLAN) system to provide ubiquitous, campus-wide wireless coverage to more than 6,400 students and 750 faculty at its seven elementary schools, three middle schools, two high schools, the main district office and a facility at the Minden airport that houses the district IT staff as well as vehicles, grounds maintenance and buses.  

The new wireless infrastructure replaces a legacy HP ProCurve 802.11b/g network. DCSD originally installed HP ProCurve 420 access points to support MAP testing, typically performed via wireless laptop computer carts. Unfortunately, according to DCSD, the HP ProCurve wireless network was unstable, had hit-or-miss coverage, poor signal strength and provided no way to manage the wireless network centrally as a single, unified infrastructure.

SOURCE Ruckus Wireless

WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM?

440k+
Newsrooms &
Influencers

9k+
Digital Media
Outlets

270k+
Journalists
Opted In

GET STARTED