Cleeve Primary Wireless Project

Ruckus Wireless, a Wi-Fi technology pioneer in the enterprise wireless LAN (WLAN) market, recently announced that it has supplied Cleeve Primary in Hull with its smart Wi-Fi technology to provide reliable wireless coverage throughout the whole school. The new solution will enable teachers to effectively use ICT during lessons – a requirement under the National Curriculum – without the constant worry of losing connection and having to resort to a back-up lesson plan. The system was provided by Ruckus gold partner, internet connectivity and security reseller, Net-Ctrl.

Cleeve Primary is an age 3-11 mixed school in Hull with 450 pupils and 44 members of staff. The school owns 16 Toshiba laptops for teaching and has recently received an additional 32 notebooks of various makes including HP and MSI on loan from Hull City Learning Centre (CLC), a Centre of Excellence for the use of ICT in teaching. However, teachers were becoming increasingly frustrated with the school’s existing wireless network – a Linksys router that was located on top of a trolley holding the school laptops, and that could be moved from classroom to classroom as needed – which was only ever able to support four laptops and regularly failed completely. This meant that teachers always had to have two lesson plans ready, one for use with the laptops, and a second plan for if the network failed.

“Our previous Wi-Fi solution was completely unreliable and made it a nightmare for teachers to plan lessons using laptops – this in turn made my job a nightmare as the staff and I got increasingly frustrated by the system’s shortcomings,” said Teresa Howlett, ICT curriculum officer for Cleeve Primary. “With ICT playing an increasingly important role in the National Curriculum, it was vital for us to install a Wi-Fi system that could be relied upon to deliver a wide-ranging, dependable signal.

The school therefore decided it was time to deploy a more reliable Wi-Fi solution that could effectively support all laptops, and that will scale as the number of mobile devices in use at Cleeve Primary grows. Cleeve Primary contacted Hull CLC for advice, and the CLC provided a quote from Solution House, but this was significantly more than the school’s budget and more than the quote from Net-Ctrl and Ruckus. Cleeve Primay has now installed eight 802.11b/g access points (APs) in the main public areas around the school, and the system is now providing reliable wireless connectivity, capable of supporting video streaming, to all classrooms, as well as the Foundation stage and music room which are located in separate buildings on the site. Cleeve Primary was also particularly impressed with the Ruckus solution’s ease-of-use.

“When we were setting up the system, we did find that one classroom was in some sort of coverage black spot,” continued Teresa. “But, because the Ruckus network is so flexible, we just moved one AP into that classroom and now there’s always signal there, and we haven’t had to compromise on coverage elsewhere either. The Ruckus system is spot on – the music room is a completely separate building but doesn’t even need its own AP to still get a good signal. ”

“Schools like Cleeve need to be able to depend on their wireless network to provide a reliable learning environment for their pupils,” said Mark Power, wireless security specialist at NetCtrl. “The price has got to be right for schools, as they are often operating on a tight budget and are accountable for their spending, but this doesn’t mean they should have to compromise on coverage. The low-cost of ownership and unrivalled reliability of the Ruckus system is ideal.” “The education sector is seeing a huge increase in the use of laptops and other mobile devices both by teachers and students alike,” said Jim Calderbank, director of enterprise sales at Ruckus. “When this started to happen, most schools installed a consumer wireless router thinking it would do the job. Actually, providing reliable Wi-Fi for so many different devices at the same time really highlights the inadequacies of these off-the-shelf solutions. Cleeve Primary has made a wise choice by selecting a solution that will not only support its current needs, but that will also scale to support future growth, avoiding further investment down the line.” About Ruckus Wireless, Inc.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Ruckus Wireless is a manufacturer of advanced “smart” Wi-Fi technology and wireless LAN (WLAN) systems used by enterprises and carriers around the world. Named a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, Ruckus has developed patented technology that uniquely extends signal range and allows for consistently reliable distribution of delay-sensitive multimedia content and services over standard 802.11 Wi-Fi. Its flagship product line, ZoneFlex, is the first centralized wireless LAN system to combine stateof- the-art Wi-Fi smart antenna arrays and wireless meshing to deliver maximum range and reliable performance at the lowest cost. Its MediaFlex multimedia wireless routers are used by leading broadband operators around the world to extend digital services such as IPTV throughout subscribers’ home without wires.

Ruckus has raised approximately $39million from premier investors such as Motorola, T-Ventures, Telus, Sutter Hill Ventures, Mitsui, Sequoia Capital and others. Ruckus Wireless is led by Ms Selina Lo, president and chief executive officer.

For more information visit Ruckus Wireless at http://www.ruckuswireless.com.