The New College Swindon, one of the largest campuses in the U.K. for A Level and GSCE students, now has an 802.11n wireless network built by Xirrus.

The network is supposed to help the campus realize the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) mobility feature and enable students and staff to connect to the campus network from anywhere, at any time, using their own devices.

Xirrus, a provider of long-range Wi-Fi arrays, incorporates the intelligence required in a wireless node to provide the performance and capacity such that users cannot tell they are on a wireless network — other than their mobility. Its Wi-Fi Array architecture is stated to display both overlay Wi-Fi offerings and switched Ethernet to the desktop. The Wi-Fi Array integrates 4, 8, 12, 16, or 24 802.11abg+n radios coupled to a high-gain directional antenna system into a single device along with an onboard multi-gigabit switch, Wi-Fi controller, firewall, dedicated Wi-Fi threat sensor, and an embedded spectrum analyser.

The New College Swindon has over 3,000 full-time and 10,000 part-time students and it wanted the students have the ability to access Internet from their own laptops, tablets, and other devices. It was in need of a Wi-Fi and, more importantly, simply expected it to be there and running at a high performance level, all the time. After thorough evaluation, the school then chose Xirrus whose technology was acknowledged to be best-in-breed and its experts provided the school with the most cost-effective solution with the right balance between network coverage and bandwidth.  

The Xirrus network helped the students and staff of New College Swindon realise the benefits of M2M functionality and the campus now enjoys wireless connectivity that delivers wired performance and supports a BYOD scheme and M2M communication.

“New College Swindon is a fantastic example of how wireless technology can be used innovatively to deliver concrete business benefits to an organisation. The campus now enjoys wireless connectivity that delivers wired performance and supports a BYOD scheme and M2M communication. We look forward to working with New College Swindon as their application of wireless networking evolves,” said Sean Larner, VP of EMEA Sales at Xirrus, in a press release.