St. Joseph’s University

A Campus Wi-Fi Infrastructure Gets a Needed Overhaul

Visit St. Joseph’s University today and you’ll find a world-class smart Wi-Fi network that is used by students, teachers and guests for everything, everywhere. Professors, as part of their digital curriculums, are streaming information to their students through Apple TVs. The advancement of technology has hit the higher education world making reliable Wi-Fi an essential utility tool for colleges and universities around the world. Like many schools, more reliable and robust Wi-Fi has become the focal point for change among many universities. From classrooms and dorm rooms, to the sports facilities, students and teachers want more wireless capacity, better performance and reliable connections everywhere with any devices. Consequently, Wi-Fi is no longer a luxury, but essential to the education sector, looking to attract the best and brightest.

St. Joseph’s University is a private Catholic Jesuit University founded in 1851 and resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With 82 buildings covering 114 acres, the university serves over 9K students and 1,030 in faculty and staff. Like most colleges, the struggle for reliable Wi-Fi was problematic. With a generation that is always online, the students at St. Joseph’s were not happy with the existing Wi-Fi that provided poor performance and coverage.

“Every student who spent time on campus last year knows the endless struggle that is St. Joe’s Wi-Fi. From the 20 minutes it took for your computer to connect to the Internet to the frustration that the Wi-Fi induced when it dropped in the middle of registration, trying to survive life on Hawk Hill without an Ethernet cord has always been a bit problematic,” comments Catharine Gaylord, author of the student newspaper, The Hawk, and student attending St. Joseph’s University.

Requirements
  • Secure and simple onboarding for different types of clients
  • Wanted a campus-wide mobility to enable streaming to Apple/Smart TVs
  • Simplified and scalable WLAN management to support APs
  • A reliable and future-proof network at low cost of ownership
Solutions
  • Deployed 780 access points to cover all buildings on campus
  • Increased the number of concurrent clients supported per AP while improving signal strength and wireless reliability
  • Ease of management with ZoneDirector
  • Flexible network solution to meet demands for current and future Wi-Fi needs with superior connectivity and coverage with low cost of ownership
To learn more about this project:

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