Should You Upgrade to 802.11ac
Leila Meyer · T.H.E. Journal Technological Horizons in Education · 2015
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The latest WiFi specification promises speed and capacity advantages, the performance it delivers will depend on your district's devices and infrastructure. As districts upgrade or expand their wireless networking infrastructure to support 1-to-1, online assessments and other digital learning initiatives, many are future-proofing their investment by moving to 802.11ac technology, the latest WiFi specification. White Bear Lake Area Schools (MN) is one of those districts. According to director of technology Mark Garrison, the district had a total of about 200 access points (APs) and needed approximately 750 to support its new 1-to-1 initiative. Adding more than 500 new APs to the existing network would have cost as much as replacing the entire wireless infrastructure, so they went the replacement route with Extreme Networks. They started implementing the new system last summer and planned to complete it in March. Garrison said, could have kept with 802.11n and that would have been fine, we want this infrastructure to last five to eight years. We have to think about how much more data students will be pushing through there and this certainly seemed like the way to go. Part of Garrison's planning was based on the lifecycle of today's mobile devices. need that infrastructure to last through three generations of [client] devices, so we try to think in terms of infrastructure that will be compatible with those devices. If schools can afford it, they should go with the up-and-coming standard because it's going to serve them better in the long run. Helping Older Devices Run Better While 802.11ac-compatible devices are becoming more commonly available on the market, 802.11n devices are still prevalent in schools. Quakertown Community School District (PA) has had districtwide wireless infrastructure for six or seven years, recently replaced its entire wireless set-up with 802.11ac technology from Aruba Networks. According to director of technology Joe Kuzo, the existing equipment was due to be refreshed, and Quakertown made the decision to make the jump to 802.11ac. Although a few of the laptops in the district office support the 802.11ac standard, Kuzo said, most devices in the district still use 802.11n--but even those devices have seen some benefit from the new network. I won't say it's drastic by any means, said Kuzo, but in our high-concentration areas we get slightly better connections even on an 802.11n client. As we start transitioning equipment over to supported 802.11ac cards, that's when we're really going to see more noticeable change. Erik Heinrich, the former director of IT for San Francisco Unified School District, oversaw that district's 802.11ac implementation. Since then he has moved on to a new role as SLED (state and local government and education) engagement manager for Ruckus Wireless. According to Heinrich, 802.11n devices may experience a performance boost when connected to 802.11ac infrastructure because the newer access points that support the 802.11ac standard are built with engineering, and the faster processors improve the performance for older clients because it's processing the data more quickly, he said. So even for the older 802.11n devices, they're seeing better range and performance, even if they're not leveraging the 802.11ac protocol. It's just better hardware inside the access point. Speed and Capacity Benefits Districts that have upgraded to 802.11ac infrastructure, particularly those that have at least some 802.11ac-capable devices, have reported increases in both speed and capacity. Pulaski County Special School District in Little Rock, AR, recently expanded its wireless network to include a mix of 802.11n and 802.11ac access points from Aerohive. Director of IT Jimmy Hogg explained that Pulaski County has an iPad initiative, and four of its schools currently have iPad Air tablets, which take advantage of the 802. …