Meru Networks has migrated over 500 microcell-based WLAN education customers worldwide to Meru's virtualized wireless LAN solution in the last six months.  With the start of a new school year, students are introducing a greater number of mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads and Android devices, and educators are incorporating digital learning into their curriculum, greatly impacting the density and convergence of applications over the wireless network.  In the last six months, over 500 schools around the world faced WLAN performance and throughput issues with legacy microcell-based offerings.  These microcell-based solutions did not address customer needs for optimal performance under high density and unpredictable environments.  Meru's virtualized WLAN solution is designed to help these customers realize significant performance and throughput benefits, and lower operating costs due to overall efficiency improvements and by using up to 30 percent fewer access points.  Meru's customers now have the ability to improve the overall learning experience for their students, and deliver a Wireless-Like-Wire™ performance and security experience across campuses.

"With the school year just getting underway, we have seen a huge increase in Wi-Fi enabled devices and demand for wireless network resources," said Eric Hawley, associate vice president, Utah State University.  "Meru's virtualized WLAN has elegantly scaled to meet these needs and allowed our students to take advantage of the network from any spot on campus.  Our faculty, staff and guests are also able to utilize the network without impacting the performance inside of classrooms or administration offices.  The new school year has brought lots of new devices but no WLAN problems. It truly gives us a competitive advantage as students evaluate their options in the years to come."

"With the beginning of another school year comes an influx in the number of mobile devices and applications on campus, driving higher densities and the demand for higher performing wireless services," said Ram Appalaraju, senior vice president of marketing, Meru Networks.  "Wireless users on campus need a best-in-class experience for video, voice and data application workflows.  And IT organizations are demanding simple, predictable, and scalable wireless performance.  Meru's innovation has enabled several hundred education institutions to realize outstanding business and service level results while minimizing complexity."

Increased Density Drives Adoption of Meru's Virtualized WLAN

Today, educators are incorporating online learning initiatives such as multimedia-rich lessons, 1:1 laptop initiatives, videoconferencing, and distance learning.  Meru's Service Assurance Platform is designed to handle high density environments, as proven by our WLAN 500 demonstration.  Institutions can now receive high performance and predictably across campus, and deliver the Wireless-like-Wire reliability and experience expected by their students.

"In the last few years, we have seen a rapid increase in client density on campus," said Chris Carey, director of technology, Bellarmine College Preparatory.  "Previously, we had deployed a microcell WLAN that could not scale to meet our changing needs and the network performance greatly suffered, causing us to look for a more scalable solution.  We chose Meru's Virtualized WLAN, which has delivered the highest quality wireless experience to our students and staff as our density has continued to rise and our mission-critical applications have grown in bandwidth requirements."

"The higher education networking sector is being driven by student demand for broadband everywhere on campus, as well as faculty and staff requiring maximum mobile bandwidth for research, collaboration, and distance learning," said Andrew Borg, senior research analyst for wireless and mobility, Aberdeen Group.  "Students and faculty alike want to be able to roam throughout campus with uncompromised connectivity, no matter where they may be."

Meru Enables an Enhanced Learning Environment with Critical Application Support

Interactive, multimedia tools such as digital textbooks and social media sites are being utilized from kindergarten rooms to university laboratories to both provide cost savings and increase collaboration.  Students at Filton College, for instance, are able to access these tools in an efficient manner without drops in service and delays in the lesson.  Students utilize these tools from tablet devices like the iPad inside the classroom without interfering with students working on laptops, as Meru can support the increased density with the highest-performance levels.

"Meru's solution was rapidly deployed without the need for extensive site surveys or channel planning.  The great benefit of Meru's technology is that it can be readily adapted and scaled to meet the ever changing needs of the site as the school continues to expand and diversify," said Bobby Wilson, information technology team leader, Filton College, United Kingdom.  "Meru's system has allowed Filton to increase the provision of devices to both staff and students.  Users at the school can move freely within buildings and inside the classrooms while maintaining their fast, reliable and secure connection. There is now confidence in delivering lessons and instructions wirelessly."