Blackburn College beacon of wi-fi excellence

Staff and students at Blackburn College are set to benefit from cross-campus access to fast and free wi-fi after Pennine Telecom won a contract to supply equipment to extend its wireless network.

Pennine Telecom provided a wireless network survey and planning expertise to help the college design its Wi-fi network. Some  55 Meru access points (APs) were installed to create a resilient wireless infrastructure within the college’s existing buildings. Following the success of that project Pennine fitted a further 70 APs so that so the network embraced the state-of-the-art £18.3m Beacon Centre which opened in January 2012.

Wi-fi access is becoming widely regarded as a “must have” for schools and colleges. Not only are teaching and learning resources becoming increasingly IT dependent, but staff and students often arrive armed with their own devices for accessing the internet for both work and social purposes.

“There’s huge demand for wireless services,” confirms Imtiyaz Patel, Senior Network Officer at Blackburn College which, with between 12-15,000 students, is one the UK’s largest and most successful. “We have several data networks plus wi-fi internet so that people who bring in their own smartphones, laptops, netbooks or tablets can access the web using the free service we’re providing.”

The Meru system needs to support separate networks because, for obvious security reasons, the college wants to restrict access to the corporate network to devices which it manages. But the ease with which Meru can support multiple networks only partly informed the college’s purchasing decision. “The old network offered patchy wi-fi spots across the campus,” recalls Mr. Patel. “In addition we have some classes where they use 15 or 20 laptops simultaneously and we were experiencing log in difficulties,” explains Mr. Patel. “Naturally we wanted to upgrade but with the old network that would have meant changing the controller as well as the access points. Meru is scalable because the controller can house a number of access points and that not only reduces cost but satisfies our need for future-proofing.”

That choice was also informed by a visit to Bolton College where Pennine had successfully met similar demands utilising Meru. “We visited there with Pennine and spoke to a few people, both technical and end users.” Their feedback was clearly positive and also provided added confidence in the choice of Pennine as supplier.

Confidence was well placed according to Mr. Patel. “We got a good deal and service from Pennine Telecom and the after-sales support is excellent too. If I need some help or information they’re good at providing it.”

Of course the real test is provided by the students who are the predominant users of the network.  That test was passed with flying colours reports Mr. Patel. “As long as we’re providing an efficient service, which we are, they think it’s great. If they can log in within a reasonable time and access what they need to access, then they’re happy.”