Lodi Unified School District

Planning for the Future, Lodi USD Makes The Move To 802.11ac to Combat Device Explosion and Growing Capacity Demands

When is the right time to migrate to the newest high-speed 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard? That’s the question Lodi Unified School District (Lodi USD) needed to answer with a rising tide of wireless traffic and more powerful devices hitting its wireless network. About 35 miles south of the state capital of Sacramento, CA, Lodi USD encompasses six additional communities, covering 350 square miles with some 50 K-12 schools serving roughly 30,000 K-12 students.

Like many schools facing the same considerations, Lodi decided to begin an ambitious project to upgrade and expand its Wi-Fi infrastructure across the entire district. The reasons for it suggest that a lot of other enterprises may make the same decision sooner rather than later as more powerful Wi-Fi devices hit the market and more media-rich applications are used in and out of the classroom.

“We needed a unified wireless infrastructure that could give us the longest possible lifespan and headroom for new media-rich applications being run on smart mobile devices in the classroom,” said Edith Holbert, network systems supervisor for Lodi Unified School District (LUSD). “You have to be prepared for whatever clients are out there today, as well as five years from today. Our move to 802.11ac is a key part of our strategy to stay ahead of this technology trend that everyone is facing.”