The Forest School

Wireless LAN Provides an Easy Way to Add Teachers and Students to the Network.

The Forest School, based in Wokingham, Berkshire, provides an educational base for 1200 boys, aged 12-18 and has over 100 members of staff, teaching in a range of subjects. The Forest School has been a Business and Enterprise College (BEC) since 2003 and in 2006 was awarded the accolade of being an Enterprise Hub School for Berkshire. With this status in the Reading Borough, The Forest School wanted to provide a more consistent wireless service to its users.

Problem

Individual teaching departments wanted to add more laptops onto the network, which would mean a higher density of users logging on. The existing wireless network had grown organically over the years but was unmanaged and struggled with the amount of traffic. A new solution that was centrally managed and scalable was imperative, as it had been decided that the whole site would not be covered with the first implementation.

According to Daniel Rose, Network Manager at the Forest School: ‘In the end the decision was made less on the solution and more on AIT’

Solution

AIT delivered the solution using their own in house team who oversaw all aspects of the project from site surveys through to designing the school’s guest network welcome page.

The first stage of the project involved implementing a Trapeze MX-200 Mobility Controller, and a number of ’Mobility Points’ into the main school block and three external antennas onto the English terrapin and Home Economics block. This provided better wireless roaming for the users and immediately.

Result

With the MX-200 implemented, The Forest School now have the capability to expand the network simply by adding Mobility Points into the areas they want to have covered.

‘The new wireless system has created a better learning and working environment for students and teachers at the school’, said Mr Rose. ‘We will be adding more Mobility Points and hope to have the whole site covered within the next year’.

‘During every step of the process AIT has been very helpful, from the initial meeting with Simon, to the extensive work Shane has done on the network configuration and guest page since the kit was implemented’.