Lamar University

Lamar Goes Big with RUCKUS® Wi-Fi in Campus-wide 802.11ac Upgrade

A member of the Texas State University system and one of the fastest growing universities in Texas, Lamar University (Lamar) needed faster and better Wi-Fi everywhere to deal with the growth of smart mobile devices and students, faculty, and staff demanding wireless access. Based in Beaumont, Texas, Lamar is situated on a massive 270-acre campus about 90 miles east of Houston. Until recently, Wi-Fi at Lamar was provided simply on a best efforts basis. Conventional access points were littered throughout select buildings. But as more and more curriculum went digital and students and faculty moved online, something needed to change.

Client densities and capacity demands for Wi-Fi were exploding. So was Lamar’s legacy Wi-Fi network. Lamar needed a new cost effective 802.11ac Wi-Fi infrastructure that would provide pervasive coverage and gigabit-class performance to more than 14,000 students and faculty across some 64 buildings on campus.

Not only were personal Wi-Fi powered devices now ubiquitous, but Lamar was quick to realize that a robust, reliable, and fast wireless network was critical to recruiting students, becoming one of the top deciding factors in the decision making process and essential in the competitive higher education market.

Requirements
  • Unified indoor/outdoor 802.11ac infrastructure centrally managed
  • Ability to adapt to a variety of different building and environments
  • Higher density user connectivity per AP
  • Elegant and easy to provision BYOD framework
Solutions
  • 500+ RUCKUS 802.11ac indoor and outdoor Smart Wi-Fi access points
  • Redundant ZoneDirector 5000 Smart WLAN controllers
  • RUCKUS SmartCell Insight reporting/analytics platform
  • CloudPath BYOD auto onboarding
Benefits
  • High performance Wi-Fi even in dense classrooms and auditoriums
  • Lower total cost of ownership compared to other 802.11ac alternatives
  • Improved coverage with fewer APs and more stable Wi-Fi connections
  • Unified indoor/outdoor campus-wide high performance Wi-Fi infrastructure
  • Detailed WLAN analytics and high availability centralized Wi-Fi administration
To learn more about this project:

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